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Loaded looks and deathly silence. At least we’re good at something.
“What do you want to know?” I ask carefully.
“Whatdoyou know, Destiny?”
I can’t help the annoyed grin that spreads across my face.
He really has to ask?
It might be easier to ask what Idon’tknow.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for otters,” I explain, stepping over a fallen log exploding with moss.
It’s so idyllic here with the morning sun straining through the budding leaves. Mulch and gravel cover the ground without so much overgrowth the deeper we go.
I take a breath, hold it, and exhale.
This is fine.
This is good.
I don’t need to worry about what he thinks of me out here.
My body aches. I’m so tired I’m seeing double, but I’m here and present in the moment.
“I fell in love with them when I was a kid and learned they hold hands while they sleep. Can you believe how cute that is?”
“I can believe it,” he says dryly. “Are you drawn to anything besides the fact that they’re living cartoons?”
I glare at him.
“Duh. Their numbers have recovered a little recently, but they’re still endangered. They’re interesting creatures and they need our help. They have the densest fur of any mammal.”
“What, they don’t have enough fat to keep warm in the ocean currents?”
“Exactly.” I grin up at him. Maybe it’s the light, but it looks like he half smiles back. “We’d find them more easily in Alaska, but there’s a small population here that’s still going. The Washington groups used to have a pretty extensive range and ten times its numbers, but you can guess what happened.”
“People, unfortunately. I know the feeling,” he growls.
He couldn’t be more right.
The edge in his voice almost makes me laugh.
It’s not hard to imagine him giving up every dollar he has if he could make everyone in a hundred-mile radius disappear.
“So, what then? You’re campaigning to put them on people’s radar? For raising awareness?”
“I guess. The animals that strike a note with the public always get a leg up with researchers and big money. It may not be right, but it’s a fact. It’s sad that the sea otters are still relatively unknown, though. We need folks to see how important they are to the ecosystem. They do a ton, no matter how sweet they look.” Any second now, I’m waiting for him to cut me off with a curt nod, but he doesn’t.
He just keeps listening as I rattle off otter facts like a talking Wiki article, my past trips here, the professor I worked with a couple years ago who fought tooth and nail for a grant he couldn’t get for better research into restoring their numbers.
“Basically, they’re in a pretty similar place to polar bears, just less well known,” I say. “Between the shrinking habitat and human industry mucking things up, it isn’t good. If they don’t get some serious attention soon...”
I don’t finish, but my meaning is clear.
The otters are dead meat.
The Washington remnant, for sure, and probably the rest of the Pacific Northwest population after that.
