Your symbolic adoption will support SR3's work, including its efforts to protect the threatened Northern sea otters who live along the outer coast of Washington and Oregon. This keystone species is crucial to the health of kelp forests and the thousands of other marine animals who rely on them to survive. Once hunted to extinction in the region, otters from Alaska were used to reestablish populations here in the 1970s. Today there is a small, slowly recovering population, but they now face new man-made threats, such as the risk of an oil spill in shipping lanes near their habitat. SR3 works with government agencies to establish emergency response plans and build specialized equipment to protect these vulnerable animals.