All species / Enhydra lutris

Enhydra lutris

Sea Otter

Red List, global: EN; Endangered, 2021
First CITES listing: I; Appendix I, 1975
CITES trade records: 148; 1977–2023 · exporter-reported
Unit dimensions: 3; reported separately, never summed
NAMMCO catch entries: none; NAMMCO reports a subset of marine mammals
Seizure records: 6; reported taxon matches

One of 43: each square a species, coloured by its latest global Red List category, this one ringed. Sea Otter is among the other mammals.

In summary derived

Enhydra lutris, Sea Otter, is placed in family Mustelidae, order Carnivora, class Mammalia. It was first listed in Appendix I in 1975. The earliest CITES listing row the corpus holds for it is Appendix I/II, dated 1977, a later entry than the 1975 listing. The corpus records 1 dated listing row in total. The corpus lists it under more than one appendix, which marks a split-population listing: different populations sit under different appendices rather than the species moving between them.

Its latest global Red List assessment is Endangered, published 2021. It carries 5 earlier global assessments on the current scale and 1 on a scale that was superseded before the current categories and cannot be compared with them.

The corpus holds 148 exporter-reported CITES trade records for it, from 1977 to 2023, reported across 3 unit dimensions. The most frequently recorded term is live (47 records). The corpus holds no NAMMCO catch records for it. 6 seizure records are attributed to it, being those whose reported taxon matches the species.

Composed from 18 corpus fields, by template, with no model

species.class
species.family
species.order_name
species_catch.catch_total
species_iucn.is_global
species_iucn.status
species_iucn.year_published
species_listing.appendix
species_listing.listing_date
species_listing_event.appendix
species_listing_event.event_date
species_seizure.*
species_trade.dimension
species_trade.first_year
species_trade.last_year
species_trade.record_count
species_trade.reporter_type
species_trade.term

Each sentence is generated from the columns above and nothing else. The same corpus produces the same text every time. Where a field is absent the sentence is omitted rather than hedged.

Overview curated

Taxonomy entered by a named curator and versioned in the repository.

Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
First CITES listing: 1975
Global Red List status: ENEndangered, assessed 2021

Content withheld pending expert review

8 narrative sections for this species were machine-drafted and are not shown. No subject expert has reviewed and signed them.

Trade derived

CITES Trade Database v2025.1, extracted 13 June 2025.

There is no single trade total

Quantities are reported per unit dimension, per traded term, and per reporting side. These are not additive: kilograms and individual animals have no common unit, a live animal is not a carving, and an importer report and an exporter report are two accounts of one shipment rather than two shipments.

Figures below are exporter-reported.

count in specimens: 143 records, 97%
mass in kg: 3 records, 2%
volume in L: 2 records, 1%

Records per dimension. Not additive across units.

Trade over time

Peak 11 records in 2011. Trade records per year, exporter-reported, every term and unit counted as records, not quantities.

Peak 17 specimens in 1994. Quantity of live, the term with most records (47), in specimens, exporter-reported. Other terms are in the tables below, each in its own unit.

count measured in specimens

143 of 148 records carry a quantity in specimens. CITES leaves the unit blank to mean a count of the term.

live47

specimens32

skins14

garments10

bodies9

teeth8

skulls4

skin pieces3

Top 8 of 18. Bars count trade records per term, not specimens, all sources combined; the table splits them by source and gives the quantity in specimens.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	1,356 specimens	30	1994–2019	W
live	71 specimens	27	1990–2023	W
live	34 specimens	11	1982–1989	not recorded
live	8 specimens	8	1987–2001	C
bodies	14 specimens	6	1990–2021	W
skins	5 specimens	5	1977–1985	not recorded
teeth	9 specimens	5	2000–2016	O
garments	6 specimens	4	1993–2021	O
skins	21 specimens	4	1993–2019	W
skins	3 specimens	3	2000–2004	O
garments	3 specimens	3	2010–2016	W
leather items	4 specimens	3	1996–1997	W

Showing the 12 term and source combinations with the most records, of 40.

mass measured in kg

3 of 148 records carry a quantity in kg.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	0.1 kg	2	2017	W
specimens	0.00500 kg	1	2011	C

volume measured in L

2 of 148 records carry a quantity in L.

Term	Quantity	Records	Years	Source
specimens	0.02 L	2	2018–2019	W

CITES listings curated

CoP decisions, cross-checked against the appendix reported on trade records.

First listed on 1975-07-01, in Appendix I, from the CITES listing history. The table below holds the species' current listing entries, which begin later; earlier coverage is often under a higher taxon.

Date	Appendix	Annotation	Status
1977-02-04	I/II	[SUBFAMILY listing Lutrinae spp.]	earliest current entry

IUCN Red List derived

Assessment history. Scope is always stated: a regional assessment is not the species status.

This history crosses a criteria revision

Categories from before 2001 come from earlier Red List systems. Three kinds are kept apart.

LR/lc and LR/nt are the modern LC and NT under their old names, so they are plotted as those categories and the line runs through them: nothing changed but the wording.

LR/cd was discontinued with no successor. This project reads it as Near Threatened, following a published crosswalk between the old and new Red List systems, and the chart marks such a point hollow and names both codes, because placing a category is not the same as finding it published.

The pre-1994 codes (E, V, K, T and the rest) are not on the risk order at all, so they sit below the axis and the line breaks across them. A category change across a criteria revision is not a change in extinction risk, and none of these is scored as a movement: the ledger refuses every one of them at gate 3.

published global assessment

Vertical position is the IUCN risk order, not a measured quantity: the gaps between categories are equal on the page and not in nature. 7 global assessments are drawn at 6 positions: one position carries more than one assessment of the same category in the same year, and the table below lists them separately. The dashed step crosses the 2001 revision of the Red List criteria: the category codes on either side match, the criteria behind them do not, so the step is shown and not measured.

Category movement since listing: not scored. Gate 3: the baseline category LR/lc comes from a pre-2001 Red List system and is not on the modern ordinal scale. How this is defined and why some species are not scored

Year	Category	Meaning	Scope	Status
2021	EN	Endangered	Global	current for this scope
2021	EN	Endangered	Global	a republished version of the 2021 assessment
2015	EN	Endangered	Global
2011	EN	Endangered	Global
2008	EN	Endangered	Global
2000	EN	Endangered	Global
1996	LR/lc	Lower Risk, least concern (1994 system)	Global

Reported catch derived

NAMMCO catch exports dated 11 June 2025. A reported zero is stored as zero, distinct from an unknown.

No NAMMCO catch records for this species. NAMMCO reports on a subset of marine mammals, so an absence here is expected for most species and does not mean no catch occurred.

Illegal trade seizures derived

Seizure records whose reported taxon resolves to this species.

What the seizure source records

6 seizure records name this species, 1 of it under another name that resolves to it (a published synonym, a gendered variant of the epithet, or a subspecies). Matching is on the taxon the source reported, case aside, and each record below shows the reported name, so a match that is not literal can be seen for what it is. Across the whole compilation, 225 of 919 rows match one of the 43 species and the rest name other taxa.

Quantities are unitless. The source gives no date or place, so the table shows the product and the reported taxon.

skull3

skin2

bone1

Records per product, not a quantity.

Product	Reported as
bone	Enhydra lutris
skin	enhydra lutris
skin	Enhydra lutris
skull	Enhydra lutris
skull	enhydra lutris lutris
skull	Enhydra lutris

References withheld

Machine-proposed bindings. Shown only where an expert has signed the profile and the binding is live.

No references are recorded for this species: none is shown, and none was machine-proposed for review.

Timeline curated

Curated events. Those with no corroborating table in this database are marked.

Date	Event	Type	Corroboration
2021	IUCN Red List Assessment (2021)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2015	IUCN Red List Assessment (2015)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2011	IUCN Red List Assessment (2011)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2008	IUCN Red List Assessment (2008)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
2000	IUCN Red List Assessment (2000)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1996	IUCN Red List Assessment (1996)	iucn_assessment	checked against `iucn_assessments`
1977-02-04	Listed in CITES Appendix I/II	cites_listing	checked against `cites_listings`