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THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, NOvEmbER 25, 2021
Coastal tribes hope to bring back sea otters
By AMY MAYER
National Public Radio
The lives of sea otters —
the tool-using marine mam-
mals — were once inter-
twined with those of the
coastal tribes in Oregon.
But when fur traders discov-
ered the value of the warm,
waterproof pelts, a global
trade led to the near extinc-
tion of the animals. Now,
local Native Americans are
hoping to bring them back.
Peter Hatch, a member of
the Confederated Tribes of
Siletz, says he began learn-
ing about the relationship
between his people and the
otters when he and his father
built a boat and needed a
name for it.
“My dad happened
across elakha, for sea otter,
in a Chinook jargon dictio-
nary,” Hatch said, stand-
ing on Sunset Beach, just
south of Coos Bay. That’s
where the last local sea otter
was sold in 1910, one year
before implementation of an
international treaty to pro-
tect them.
Hatch and his father
delved into the history of
otters and became interested
in bringing them back.
“We survived and the sea
otters didn’t,” Hatch said.
“That leaves us with a level
of responsibility to undo
the wrongs that all peo-
ple, whatever their partic-
ular background — we’ve
had our own small part in
committing.”
His father founded the
Elakha Alliance about 20
years ago to advocate for
returning sea otters to Ore-
gon. The older Hatch has
Reed Saxon/AP Photo
A group of sea otters gather in Morro Bay in 2010.
passed away, but today the
group has the blessing of
three coastal tribes. Hatch is
the group’s secretary.
“It is about restoring that
relationship,” he said, “about
bringing back a relative.”
The Elakha Alliance has
commissioned a feasibility
study looking at the biology,
ecology, economics and cul-
tural impacts of reintroduc-
ing otters. An unanswered
question is why the 1970
effort to move some Alaska
otters to Oregon failed. But
during the long years otters
have been away, a shellfish
industry has grown lucrative
in the very waters where the
otter restoration would take
place.
Off the coast of Bodega
Bay, California, 450 miles
south of Coos Bay, Dick
Ogg and his two-person
crew throw Dungeness crab
pots into the water. Ogg
says he has nothing against
otters.
“Personally, I love ‘em.
They’re really neat little
critters,” he said.
But otters eat about a
quarter of their body weight
every day to stay warm in
frigid Pacific waters. He’s
concerned sea otters would
start chowing down on
Dungeness crab.
“If they bring the little
guys up here and they wipe
out the Dungeness crab fish-
ery, it’s going to wipe out
the fishermen,” Ogg said.
“That’s our main opportu-
nity to make our living.”
More than 800 people
in Oregon and California
hold commercial permits
for Dungeness crab and they
employ many others who
also rely on the fishery. Ogg
knows sea otters once lived
here and farther north. But
now they stay well to the
south.
“Why haven’t they
reached past that point?”
Ogg asked.
The answer to Ogg’s
question can be found at
the Monterey Bay Aquar-
ium, which has an indoor
exhibit of swimming sea
otters who dive down, pop
out of the water and roll
onto their backs to oohs
and ahhs from visitors. But
aside from the exhibit otters,
who are unable to live in the
wild, the aquarium rehabil-
itates abandoned pups and
releases them.
Jessica Fuji, sea otter
program manager at the
aquarium, says there are
natural hurdles preventing
sea otters from moving back
into Northern California and
Oregon waters.
“Both to the north and
south ends of their current
range is where there are a
lot of white sharks,” she
said. The aquarium releases
healthy pups in a nearby
estuary, Elkhorn Slough,
where resident otters pro-
vide a community. Fuji says
the next step for restoration
would be to see whether the
otters really could live again
where they once thrived.
“Looking at a good hab-
itat for the sea otters ... is
there food? Risks from
predators, as well as dif-
ferent diseases? All of that
combined is going to have
to be considered in finding a
potential otter utopia,” Fuji
said.
Maybe Oregon could
be that promised land. Sea
otter advocates got a boost
last year when U.S. Sen. Jeff
Merkley, an Oregon Dem-
ocrat, pushed Congress to
request a reintroduction fea-
sibility study from the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
It’s due next month. Peter
Hatch says his Elakha Alli-
ance wants to see a healthy
marine ecosystem here in
50 years that includes sea
otters.
“Success for us looks like
a couple of hundred otters,
not a couple of thousands,”
Hatch said.
He hopes that would be
enough to revive the con-
nection between Oregon’s
coastal tribes and the marine
mammals that once helped
sustain them.
Consumer spending drives supply shortages
By TOM KRISHER
and PAUL WISEMAN
Associated Press
DETROIT — Take a
step back from the picked-
over store shelves, the
stalled container ships and
the empty auto showrooms,
and you’ll find a root cause
of the shortages of just about
everything.
Even as the pandemic has
dragged on, U.S. households
flush with cash from stimu-
lus checks, booming stock
markets and enlarged home
equity have felt like spend-
ing freely again — a lot.
And since consumer demand
drives much of the U.S.
and global economies, high
demand has brought goods
shortages to the U.S. and
much of the world.
Add the fact that com-
panies are ordering — and
hoarding — more goods and
parts than they need so they
don’t run out, and you end
up with an almost unquench-
able demand that is magnify-
ing the supply shortages.
That’s where a big prob-
lem comes in: Suppliers
were caught so flat-footed
by how fast pent-up spend-
ing surged out of the reces-
sion that they won’t likely be
able to catch up as long as
demand remains so robust.
That’s especially so because
Americans, still hunkered
down at home more than
they did before the pan-
demic, continue to spend
more on goods — electron-
ics, furniture, appliances,
sporting goods — than on
services like hotels, meals
out and movie tickets. All
that demand for goods, in
turn, is helping to accelerate
U.S. inflation.
Unless spending snaps
sharply back to services — or
something else leads people
to stop buying so much — it
could take deep into 2022 or
even 2023 before global sup-
ply chains regain some sem-
blance of normalcy.
“Demand is completely
skewed,” said Bindiya Vakil,
CEO of Resilinc, a consult-
ing firm that helps compa-
nies manage supply chains.
“This has now become more
and more painful by the
day.”
One reason people may
eventually stop spending so
much is that everything sim-
ply costs more now. Con-
Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo
A cargo ship stacked with shipping containers is seen docked at the Port of Los Angeles earlier this month.
sumer prices in the U.S. sky-
rocketed 6.2% over the past
year as food, gasoline, autos
and housing catapulted infla-
tion to its highest pace since
1990. The laws of gravity
suggest that the cumulative
effect of so much inflation
will eventually exert a brake
on spending.
For now, though, man-
ufacturers foresee no end
to heavy demand — and
no end to beleaguered sup-
ply chains or spiking infla-
tion pressures. A chronic
lack of computer chips has
forced Ford Motor Co., for
instance, to revamp its sys-
tem of ordering parts that
require long periods from
order to delivery to try to
address shortages.
“It’s highlighted that
the ‘just-in-time’ operating
model that’s been prevalent
in autos may not be the right
operating model,” Hau Thai-
Tang, Ford’s chief opera-
tions and product officer,
told analysts.
Smaller companies, too,
have felt compelled to build
up as many supplies as they
can so they can still make
products. Moriarty’s Gem
Art near Chicago, a family
business for 40 years, has
been stocking up on gold,
silver and platinum to make
necklaces and rings, desper-
ate not to run out of supplies
as holiday orders pick up.
“We’re ordering a lot
more than what we actually
have orders for — just in
case,” said Jeff Moriarty, the
marketing manager.
Even a normal post-holi-
day shopping lull, though it
might help, isn’t expected to
be enough to unclog ports,
speed shipping traffic or
allow factories to replenish
inventories.
“The baseline expectation
for improvement is around
the middle of 2022,” said
Oren Klachkin, lead U.S.
economist for Oxford Eco-
nomics. “But I think the
risks of that happening later
are fairly high.”
Though Americans have
increasingly ventured out
in recent months, the bal-
ance between spending on
goods and services remains
skewed. The pent-up demand
that followed the economic
recovery is still tilted toward
goods like furniture and
cars and less toward hair-
cuts, concerts and restau-
rant meals. Though ser-
vices spending has grown in
recent months, it isn’t nearly
enough to close the gap.
Since April 2020, con-
sumer spending on goods
has jumped 32%. It’s now
15% above where it was in
February 2020, just before
the pandemic paralyzed the
economy. Goods account for
roughly 40% of consumer
spending now, up from 36%
before the pandemic.
U.S. factories have tried
mightily to keep up with
demand. Production rose
nearly 5% over the past year,
according to the Federal
Reserve, despite periodic ups
and downs, including dis-
ruptions to auto production
caused by chip shortages.
Imports have narrowed
the gap between what Amer-
ica’s consumers want and
what its factories can pro-
duce. From January through
September this year, the U.S.
imported 23% more than in
the same period in 2020. In
September, thanks to surging
imports, the U.S. posted a
record deficit in goods trade:
Imports topped exports by
$98.2 billion.
Voracious demand for
goods has accelerated as
more people have become
vaccinated
in
wealth-
ier countries. Yet in poorer
countries, especially in
Southeast Asia, the spread of
the delta variant forced new
factory shutdowns in recent
months and crimped supply
chains again. Only recently
did it start to recover.
At the same time, many
U.S. workers have decided
to quit jobs that had required
frequent public contact. This
created shortages of work-
ers to unload ships, transport
goods or staff retail shops.
Ports clogged up. Last
month, 65 ships waited off
the California coast to be
unloaded at the Ports of Los
Angeles and Long Beach —
two weeks’ worth of work.
The average wait: 12 days.
That has since worsened
to 78 ships, with an aver-
age wait of nearly 17 days,
despite
around-the-clock
port operations beginning in
October.
Before the pandemic,
ships had set arrival times
and went straight to a berth
for unloading, said Gene
Seroka, the L.A. port’s
executive director. Now,
with Asian factory out-
put at record highs, the port
is moving record levels of
goods. Yet it’s not enough to
meet the demand.
Seroka doesn’t foresee
the shipments easing even
next year. Retailers have
told him they plan to use the
slower months of January
and February — if they actu-
ally are slower — to replen-
ish inventory.
As with ports, rail lines
are moving more goods.
Through early November,
freight shipped by America’s
railroads was up 7.5% from
a year ago. Truck shipments
were up 1.7% in September.
Yet there aren’t enough driv-
ers or trucks to move all the
freight.
In China, too, manufac-
turers are struggling with
shipping delays, container
shortages and cost increases.
Shantou Limei International
Ltd., which makes children’s
toys in the city of Shantou,
expects sales to fall 30% this
year because of delays and
costlier shipping.
“The most serious prob-
lem for us is being unable
to deliver goods on time
because of the difficulties
in securing freight contain-
ers,” said Frank Xie, the
company’s general manager.
“A lot of things have gone
beyond our controls and
expectation.”
Philip Richardson, an
American who manufac-
tures loudspeakers in Panyu,
near Hong Kong, said orders
have increased 400%. A key
reason is increased demand
from Americans and Euro-
peans, who have gone on
a home electronics buy-
ing spree. The price to ship
goods to U.S. customers on
a 40-foot cargo container,
meantime, more than tripled
in July.
“The customer has to bear
it or cut back on orders,”
Richardson said.
Song Wenjie, owner
of Hand-in-Hand Electric
Appliance Technology Co., a
manufacturer of home appli-
ances in Jiaxing, south of
Shanghai, said that soaring
cargo prices make it unprof-
itable to ship some goods.
“The combination of
power outages and shipping
delays might lead to a 20%
fall in production this year,
Song said.
Among European compa-
nies grappling with snarled
supply lines is Shoe Zone, a
British retailer that sources
most of its footwear from
China. Shipping container
prices have jumped at least
five-fold in 12 months, said
Anthony Smith, the chief
executive.
“This will continue to
impact us for at least a fur-
ther six months until the
issues being experienced
in the whole supply chain
return to more sensible lev-
els,” he said.
Associated Press writers
Joe mcdonald, yu bing, Kel-
vin Chan and mae Anderson
contributed to this report.