“WERC (Western Ecological Research Center) has expertise on Sea Otters in California, Washington, and Alaska,  and works with state, federal, and local partners throughout the species' range.  The Center is the repository for data on both the threatened California’s Sea Otter population and the state-listed Washington sea otter population. The Center's Sea Otter research program is based at the Santa  Cruz Field Station. Current research focuses on population biology and  behavior of California and Washington sea otters, including monitoring their status and trends, and studying deaths caused by entanglement in fishing  equipment, and predation of sea otters in marine ecosystems, contaminants in coastal ecosystems of the Aleutian archipelago; marine reserve design for the  Bering Sea ecosystem; and interactions between sea otters and nearshore communities.”