User:Paigelebs/California Fur Rush

The massive increase of hunting and trapping in the 19th century caused the near extinction of many species in the state by the early 20th century, including the California Golden Beaver and California Sea Otter.

Coastal or maritime fur trade
The earliest record of the fur trade in California is in 1733 of Spanish missionaries trading with tribes in upper and lower California for sea otter pelts.

By the end of the 19th century, California sea otters had been hunted to near extinction. The US government began to manage sea otter as a valuable natural resource in 1911. However, due to the previous two centuries of unregulated exploitation of the species, it was uncertain whether they would be able to revive the population.

California fur-bearers today


In 2019, California State Legislature passed a bill banning the manufacturing, import, and sale of new fur products in the state. The law went into effect beginning January 1, 2023.

The spring 2019 sea otter survey counted 2,962 sea otters in the central California coast, down from an estimated pre-fur trade population of 16,000. California's sea otters are the descendants of a single colony of about 50 southern sea otters discovered near the mouth of Bixby Creek along California's Big Sur coast in 1938; their principal range is now from just south of San Francisco to Santa Barbara County.The US Geological Survey reports that the 5 year trend for sea otter population counts for the northern range was positive at 9.4 percent growth per year while the southern edge of the range had minimal growth at 0.55 percent per year. A colony of translocated sea otters near San Nicholas Island is showing population growth after ten years of low numbers. In 1991, only 16 individuals remained out of the original 139 from only a year prior, however, the current population is around 100 otters which follows the trend of other successful sea otter translocations. Northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) were one of the first species to become protected through legislation with an international Fur Seal Treaty in 1911 which banned hunting fur seals in the ocean. The Marine Mammal Protection Act identifies the Northern Fur Seal population as depleted with the California population of fur seals estimated to be around 14,000. In 1966, the United States Congress passed the Fur Seal Act which banned the hunting of fur seals with the exception of substance hunting by Indigenous Americans. The seals began to recolonize the Farallon Islands in 1996.

In contrast, the Pacific Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina richardsi) is considered a species of least concern for endangerment of extinction. Their pelts were not nearly as popular as the otter or beaver. According to the Marine Mammal Center, the population of Pacific Harbor Seals off the coast of California is estimated to be around 34,000 individuals.