Sea-otter rehabilitation staffers Amy Christiansen and Ron Tingook unloaded an otter from a helicopter, with Jack Field and Tami Thomas in the background. Otters were transferred from the Seward Otter Rehabilitation Center to Kachemak Bay, in the summer of 1989, to await release. Photo by Doug Loshbaugh.
Join us online for a virtual Cook Inlet Historical Society lecture.
Free.
Advance registration is required to receive the link. Please register directly on the Anchorage Museum website by following this link: Register Here
Speaker: Shana Loshbaugh
Despite massive publicity in 1989, the sea otter “rescue” effort has received scant attention in later retrospectives examining the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound. Over the years a mythology has grown up, portraying the wildlife rehabilitation project as a futile, expensive publicity stunt. Shana Loshbaugh worked as the project records’ supervisor for six months, participated in follow-up activities, and had unique access to documents and people involved. The true story never reached the public. The effort combined charismatic but challenging animals, Exxon’s fumbling public relations efforts, political pressure via the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a smart but naïve management team of biologists and veterinarians, and a staff the director later called “the weirdest group assembled since Caligula’s last party.”
In this talk, Loshbaugh describes the history of the project, including information about conflicts among Exxon, agencies, and staff factions with agendas as disparate as embezzlement and animal rights. The intervening years reveal a legacy of medical and animal husbandry information not obvious at the time. After sabotage, $18 million spent, and 123 animals dying in captivity, was anything gained? Flawed and incomplete newspaper accounts have shaped “conventional wisdom” about the project’s legacy. Loshbaugh’s intent is to present a more accurate (albeit personal) account of this exciting but problematic escapade.
This is the last talk in the Cook Inlet Historical Society’s 2020-2021 lecture series, “Disasters.”
After growing up in the Lower 48 suburbs, Shana Loshbaugh came to Alaska in 1981. She has lived in various places, including Homer, Fairbanks, and Kasilof, and fell in love with the Kenai Peninsula. She has worked as a newspaper reporter and librarian but is now an independent researcher. Her career highlights have included washing sea otters during the Exxon Valdez oil spill and years reporting for peninsula newspapers. Drawing on her interest in biology, history, and the area, in 2014 she earned a doctorate in environmental history from the University of Alaska Fairbanks for her study of central peninsula development and salmon habitat. She was the compiler and editor of 150 Years: Proceedings of the 2017 Kenai Peninsula History Conference (2018), and served as the conference project director.