National Geographic

LIFTING Shuguang Li was play- ing with a collapsible origami cylinder when, on a whim, he put it in a vacuum bag. Li, then a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and MIT, pumped out the air and was surprised to see the shape con- tract as if he’d pressed it with his hand. By testing other shapes, he realized that fold patterns and mate- rial stiffness controlled their motions, a dis- covery that led to the creation of these soft, strong, and light- weight robotic arms. Each arm acts like an artificial muscle, encased in a vacuum bag “skin” with an inner skeleton inspired by origami’s folds. By varying vacuum pressure, Li can make the arms perform use- ful tasks, like lifting and grasping.

education. Hull was outlining a potential project, when the program officer cut him off to say that the NSF would never fund “a research proposal with origami in the title.” This skepticism wasn’t limited to the United States. Tomohiro Tachi, a prominent origami engineer at the University of Tokyo, looks down with a smile when I ask if he’s ever faced resis- tance to his work. People in Japan, he says, often view origami as child’s play. But that perception has shifted over the past couple of decades, with the NSF spearheading much of the change. During a temporary posting at the organiza- tion starting in 2009, Glaucio Paulino pushed to fund research involving origami. “The process was brutal,” says Paulino, who is now a professor of engineering at Princeton. “We were always in the hot seat trying to defend the idea.” But the effort paid off. In 2011 the NSF issued the first of two calls for proposals mixing origami and science, and teams of researchers flocked to submit ideas. The move lent legitimacy to the burgeoning field—and the use of origami in science blossomed. “There was this resonance,” Lang says. “It was something whose time had come.” O R I G A M I I S N OW pushing the limits of what scientists think is possible, particu- larly at the tiniest of scales. On a blazing hot summer day, I meet up with Marc Miskin, an electrical engineer at the University of Pennsylvania. Inside the airy lobby of UPenn’s Singh Center for Nanotechnology, we peer through a bright-orange glass wall into a series of rooms will bend and move the same way at any size, at least theoretically. Created using the same tech- where people dressed head to toe in Tyvek sit at niques as the computer chip industry, Miskin’s robots look like fat flakes with arms and legs. microscopes or work under vent hoods. It feels When exposed to a trigger, such as voltage, their limbs bend, helping them walk through a drop on like a world away from the colorful chaos of Hull’s a glass slide or wave at a passing amoeba. office, but origami may prove no less vital here. Miskin sees a world of possible ways these tiny bots could be used, from manufacturing to Miskin and his students have been using the medicine. For now, though, pushing the limits is what’s most important to him. “If you go after clean room to craft an army of robots no bigger hard problems,” he says, “you’ll be rewarded with interesting technology.” than a speck of dust. Such tiny bots require big Origami holds particular promise for bio- creativity. Gears and most other mechanisms medicine. For instance, a team led by Daniela Rus, director of the Massachusetts Institute of with moving parts work best in the human-size world where momentum and inertia rule, Miskin explains. But that’s not the case at tiny scales where forces like friction are enormous, causing everything to stick. Gears won’t turn. Wheels don’t spin. Belts don’t run. That’s where origami comes in. Fold patterns 54 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

HEALING This tiny robot’s swirl- ing folds allow it to twist as it collapses or expands. Often called the Kresling pattern, for design expert and architect Biruta Kres- ling, the folds have inspired the invention of cylindrical struc- tures large and small, including this minus- cule medical tool. Crafted by a team led by Ruike Renee Zhao, a mechanical engineer at Stanford University, the device could one day be vital in targeted drug delivery. Mag- netic fields could direct the robot to move through the body mul- tiple ways. For exam- ple, spinning propels it through liquid thanks to the geometry of its folds. Paired mag- nets on opposite ends of the cylinder force the folds to compress, pumping liquid medi- cine to a desired point. Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial ignite the imagination and create technologies Intelligence Laboratory, developed a robot that once thought impossible, including a kayak that can fold to fit into a pill capsule. After the capsule folds down small enough to fit in a car’s trunk. is ingested, the bot unfolds and can be directed around the digestive system using programma- On a bright fall afternoon I take my kayak for ble magnetic fields. An initial test demonstrated a spin on Virginia’s Lake Accotink. The plastic one possible use: removing swallowed button suitcase draws curious looks from passersby as batteries from the stomach, a potentially deadly I unfold it. Perhaps one day folding forms will condition experienced by thousands of chil- be seen as prosaic. But for now, origami will con- dren each year. “Imagine embedding medicine tinue to spark wonder and excitement as it pro- or using it to patch a wound,” Rus says. “Just pels science, medicine, and technology into the imagine a future of surgeries with no incisions, future—and keeps me afloat as I shove off from no pain, and no risk of infection.” the lakeshore. j These types of big dreams are where origami Staff writer Maya Wei-Haas, who covers science seems to help science flourish most. The ven- for the magazine, folded a thousand origami erable art form has provided a new tool kit to cranes for her wedding. Craig Cutler specializes in still life and environmental portraiture. T H E F U T U R E I S F O L D E D 55



CONNECTING the recent explosion of origami models. This rabbit was These folded forms folded from a pattern are “like a common generated by the Ori- language,” Tachi says, gamizer, a computer connecting scientists program designed by across disciplines Tomohiro Tachi of the around the world and University of Tokyo demonstrating the for creating complex endless possibilities faceted shapes (note that unfold when art the bunny’s mosaic- and science mix. like appearance). The program helped spur

BY SARAH LUBMAN P H OTO G R A P H S BY NORIKO HAYASHI

Japan leads the world in adapting to a rapidly aging and shrinking population. 59

Japan is altering many aspects of society as its population ages, including such rituals as communal bathing. Jiro Tajima, 88, is rinsed off as he prepares to immerse himself at a Tokyo bathhouse reserved most days until early afternoon for older people to exercise, eat lunch, and enjoy a soak. Japan’s long-term care insurance covers most of the expense. PREVIOUS PHOTO One of the oldest geishas still working in Japan, Ikuko Akasaka, 82, has been perform- ing the demanding traditional art—dancing and conversing with clients—for 64 years. “Every moment I want to learn new things and polish my art,” she says.





Chikayoshi Gonda, 97, cooks dump- lings known as oyaki, while Harumi Okubo, 80, crafts them. The restaurant in Ogawa where they work started hiring older people as the mountain village’s population grayed. The average age of its employees is now 70.

On an overcast In Ibusuki, a seaside Saturday morning city in the southwest, in Iwase, a sleepy port Nga Thi Nguyen and district on the lip of Mien Thi Tran, both Toyama Bay on Japan’s from Vietnam, work at largest island, the Mifuku Suisan, a com- streets are deserted pany that makes dried until the appointed bonito flakes, a funda- hour approaches. mental seasoning in Japanese cuisine. The An elderly woman pokes her head out of her company’s president doorway and peers down the main thoroughfare says foreign technical lined with traditional low-slung wooden build- trainees like these, who ings. Another advances gingerly along a narrow are allowed to stay in side lane. A few minutes later, two tiny trucks Japan for five years, trundle up and roll to a stop. are now indispensable. The area suddenly springs to life. Five orange- vested workers emerge and bustle about, setting up traffic cones, handing out shopping bas- kets, and apologizing profusely for shifting the Tokushimaru mobile grocery a few feet from its usual spot. They ferry groceries from the first truck to the second, which efficiently morphs into a miniaturized shop with fold-out shelves and red awnings. The left side is refrigerated and stocked with individual portions of fish and meat, yogurt, eggs, and other perishables. Pro- duce is on the right; snacks and crackers, at the back. Half a dozen shoppers, all older women, move haltingly around the truck. Miwako Kawakami, a stooped 87-year-old with bobbed hair, hands her cane to a worker 64 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

and takes a small basket. She buys leeks, carrots, shrinking over the next four decades. At the same three onions, and a carton of milk. Kawakami time, Japanese people are living longer—87.6 lives alone behind a nearby temple. “There used years for women and 81.5 years for men, on aver- to be a lot of stores here, but they’re all gone,” she age. Except for the tiny principality of Monaco, says. “The vegetable stand, the fish stand—they Japan’s population is now the oldest in the world. all closed about five years ago.” She totters across the street to meet her 86-year-old neighbor, who The numbers, though stark, don’t convey how has come to help carry her groceries. profoundly this demographic shift is playing out day to day. The increasingly disproportionate Iwase has emptied out. Its young have left, mix of more and more seniors and fewer and and those still here grow older. This dynamic is fewer young people is already altering every happening all over Japan as the birth rate con- aspect of life in Japan, from its physical appear- tinues its decades-long decline. The country’s ance to its social policies, from business strategy population peaked in 2010, at 128 million. Now to the labor market, from public spaces to private it’s less than 125 million and projected to keep homes. Japan is becoming a country designed A N E W O L D A G E 65

for and dominated by the old. Yamazaki, 83, a former construction worker. As Watch the nightly news, and you’ll hear is his habit, Yamanaka forgoes the elevator and walks determinedly up seven flights of stairs reports on Japan’s “aging society” as regularly without stopping, carrying the scuffed black bag as the weather. Young people caring for family that belonged to his physician father. His patient members need greater support. 100-year-old lies on a hospital cot, one fist permanently driver steers car onto sidewalk, hits pedestrian. clenched. Aside from the bed, the narrow room Majority of yakuza in Japan now over age 50. holds a mini-fridge, a microwave, a collection of Aging is everywhere. On some train station plat- stuffed Winnie the Poohs, and little else. forms, there’s a notch in the base of each seat: It’s a place to park your cane. Abandoned “ghost “I’m dizzy,” he tells the doctor. “How’s my houses” strangled in vines are a common sight in blood pressure?” Yamanaka takes the bedrid- hollowed-out communities like Iwase but also den man’s vitals, assures him he will check his in big-city neighborhoods. medication, and reviews the visitors log; health aides also come by daily to bring food, adminis- Japan’s path foreshadows what’s coming in ter medicine, and change diapers. many areas of the world. China, South Korea, Italy, and Germany are on a similar trajectory; Japan’s long-term care insurance system is so too is the United States, although at a slower among the most generous in the world, and pace. Five years ago, the world reached an omi- Yamazaki’s needs are well covered. Compared nous milestone: For the first time in history, with people in other industrialized countries, adults 65 and older outnumbered children under the Japanese receive far more benefits than they five years old. pay for in taxes and premiums. The program subsidizes between 70 and 100 percent of elder If Japan is any guide, aging will change the care, depending on income. Before the system fabric of society in ways both obvious and subtle. It will run up a huge tab that govern- ments will struggle to pay. Meeting the challenge won’t be easy, but the future isn’t necessarily all downhill. Japan’s experience, with its charac- teristic attention to detail and design, suggests extreme aging—a world in which an increasing share of the population is old—may inspire an era of innovation. In 2020, Japan’s health ministry launched eight “living labs” dedicated to developing nursing-care robots. Yet in a way, the entire country is one big living lab grappling with the repercussions of a rapidly aging society. In business, academia, and communities around Japan, countless experi- ments are under way, all aiming to keep the old healthy for as long as possible while easing the burden of caring for society’s frailest. O S A M U YA M A N A K A is on a mission to prevent lonely deaths. Several times a week, the 67-year- old doctor leaves his Yokohama clinic to make the rounds of pensioners who live alone in ram- shackle single-room-occupancy units in Kotobukicho. The hardscrabble neighborhood sprang up during the postwar building boom to house day laborers and is now home to aging welfare recipients and “people fleeing social obli- gations for one reason or another,” Yamanaka says—alcoholics, the mentally ill, ex-convicts. On one of Yamanaka’s stops, he visits Seiji 66 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

LEFT Hiromu Inada, 89, trains at a gym in Chiba, on Tokyo Bay. He has com- peted in 66 triathlons since he turned 70. In 2018 Inada became the oldest triathlete to finish an Ironman World Championship. He works out daily, preparing for this year’s competition. “Even if I think something might not be possible, I try it,” he says, “and surprisingly it turns out to be possible.” BELOW Fumie Takino (front) is the founder and, at 90, the oldest mem- ber of Japan Pom Pom, a senior cheer squad in Tokyo. For 26 years, she has prac- ticed once a week. “It is important to be yourself and do what you want to do,” she says, “regardless of your age.” A N E W O L D A G E 67

A IA ELDER NATION PAST ITS PEAK S With nearly 30 percent of its people 65 and over, A country’s population usually follows Korea Japan has the oldest population on Earth (except tiny economy develops. Initially, numbers Monaco). Its median age of 48.7 far exceeds the world’s, care drives down mortality. But that g JAPAN at 30.2. But as growth rates slow down, many countries to education, birth control, and job o are following Japan’s graying trajectory. PA C I F I C Japanese 1950 One million OCEAN population 90 and older POPULATION SQ 80 TO THE NEARES 70 60 4.1 million 50 people 65 and olde 40 CATCHING UP FAST 2021 South Korea, 39.4% 30 11.2 mill PROJECTED Japan, 37.5% 20 people Other countries are also aging quickly, partic- Italy, 37.1% 10 ularly high-income ones in Europe and East Japan, 29.8% 1946-50 Asia. South Korea is growing older at an accel- China, 30.1% 0 erated pace; the proportion of its population High-income that’s elderly could surpass Japan’s by 2046. countries, 28% United States, 23.6% Postwar baby boom Japan rebounded after the Second World War with a high fertility rate. Its youngest age group was also its largest. Percent of Italy Middle-income population countries, 16.7% 65 and older U.S. India, 15% EMPTYING VILLAGES, GROWING 10% Low-income After peaking in 2010 at 128 million, Ja 4.9% countries, 4.8% in 10 years—a drop of 1.5 percent. Dep Nigeria, 4.3% and mountainous areas. Over a thousa residents die and younger ones leave 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 Change in population by municipality, 2010-2020 City Increase in population Prefe HOW JAPAN GOT SO OLD Up to 8% decrease 8% to 16% decrease More than 16% decrease Leading in longevity Births below the benchmark Limited immigration 50 mi Tsushima Experts say xenophobia and strict 50 km Healthy habits, along with Since 1974, Japan’s fertility rate requirements lower Japan’s admis- advanced health care, help has been less than 2.1 children sion rate for immigrants compared Iki extend Japan’s average life span per woman, the level needed to with other high-income countries. nearly 12 years past the world’s. sustain a country’s population. Net migration rate Migrations per 1,000 population* Fukuoka Kita Life expectancy at birth Fertility rate FUKUOKA Years Children per woman Goto Is. SAGA 4.9 World NAGASAKI 84.4 O Kumamoto 72.8 3.7 High-income 3.3 KUMAMOTO 2019 Japan countries 1.5 Japan 2.1 Replacement rate 2.4 Koshikijima Is. MIYAZA 59.2 KAGOSHIMA Miyazaki World 1.3 -0.3 Japan 46.5 -0.7 1950 Ibusuki 1950 2019 1950 2019 mi Is l a n d s Yaku Tanega O s u RILEY D. CHAMPINE, NGM STAFF; BRANDON SHYPKOWSKI. SOURCES: PETER MATANLE, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD; *BASED ON THE NUMBER JAMES RAYMO, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY; UNITED NATIONS POPULATION DIVISION; JAPAN MINISTRY OF HEALTH, OF IMMIGRANTS LABOR, AND WELFARE; JAPAN MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND COMMUNICATIONS; NASA MINUS EMIGRANTS

Rebun HO Rishiri s a predictable pattern as its KKAIDO expand when improved health growth wanes with better access pportunities for women. Asahikawa n people 1990 2020 HOKKAIDO 14.9 million 35.8 million QUARES ROUNDED Sapporo ST MILLION Graying in the fields er Seventy percent of farmers in Okushiri Uchiura Bay Japan are 65 and older. Hokkai- do has the most farmers of any Tsugaru Strait prefecture. Its fertility rate of 1.2 is one of the country’s lowest. ion 6.5 million 4.5 million born people born people born 1986-90 2016-20 0 Tapering growth Population in decline Japan’s fertility declined in the In 2020 Japan reported 1.6 AOMORI Misawa Sea of Japan HOKKAIDO 1970s and ’80s, as women had deaths for each birth. The num- (East Sea) HONSHU fewer children. Younger gener- ber of children under 10 is less ations became smaller in size. than half of what it was in 1950. JAPAN AKITA Morioka IWATE Tokyo CITIES KYUSHU SHIKOKU Nanpo East apan’s population fell by about two million YAMAGATA RCyS(huNeikananyasuei-I sshl aOotnkodi)nsawa PACIFIC opulation is accelerating, especially in rural MIYAGI Daito OCEAN and municipalities are in decline as older for school and jobs in larger cities. Sado Sendai Bonin Is. Islands NIIGATA (Ogasawara-shoto) Niigata KYUSHU SHIKO a Bay Islands Volcano Is. Toyam FUKUSHIMA (Kazan Retto) Municipalities HISHIKAWAToyamaOgawaNasushiobara ecture boundary ONSHUKanazawaTOCHIGI TOYAMA AmamiOki Is.GUNMAUrban influx ands NAGANO Tokyo is Japan’s youngest pre- fecture, with only 23 percent of SHIMANE Matsue FUKUI GIFU IBARAKI its population 65 and older. The TOTTORI SAITAMA megacity’s growth is propelled by migration from other regions. YAMANASHI TOKYO Tokyo Tokara Isl KYOTO Chiba HYOGO Kyoto SHIGA Yokohama KAGOSHIMA OKAYAMA Amagasaki Nagoya KANAGAWA CHIBA Islands HIROSHIMA Okayama Kobe Otsu Hiroshima Osaka AICHI s Shizuoka YAMAGUCHI Sea Sakai MIE akyushu a n d OSAKA Hamamatsu SHIZUOKA d l KAGAWA I n O Shima n EHIME Miyoshi TOKUSHIMA NARA Izu Islands l a to ) Nagoro KOCHI s h o ands Bungo Strait WAKAYAMA I OITA s wa Is u - KU k y i kina l se O y u a n R (N Naha Okinawa AKI Sakishima Islands OKINAWA Southern outlier Oldest of all SAME SCALE AS MAIN MAP Almost a thousand miles Shikoku is home to Japan’s southwest of Tokyo, Okinawa’s two most elderly prefectures, warmer climate draws many Kochi and Tokushima. In new residents—boosting each, more than a third of the population levels of all ages. population is 65 and older.



In the dwindling hamlet Nagoro, which now Inoue, 84, has decided of Nagoro on Shikoku has just 25 inhabitants, to call it quits soon. Island, 79-year-old with hundreds of dolls. Outside her home in Shinobu Ogura (left) Tadao Inoue (top) had a mountainous hamlet cleans the vacant ele- 50 cows on his dairy on Shikoku, 91-year-old mentary school. The farm in Nasu, in central Toshie Ueno (above) last students stitched Japan; now he’s down takes a stroll after feed- dolls in their like- to one. With age, the ing her 15 cats. She’s nesses; Tsukimi Ayano, work became too hard, the last person in the a 72-year-old resident, but he says that having secluded area. “I am made the principal. even one cow to milk alone here,” she says, She has populated keeps him going. Still, “but this is where I live.”

began in 2000, the ailing old would go to hospi- Tokyo. “To be honest, it’s too late. Politicians tals and stay until death. Now they tend to die don’t want to talk about reducing benefits.” at home. “In some ways,” Yamanaka says, “we’re the most advanced socialist country in terms of M O R E T H A N H A L F of all municipalities in Japan medical welfare.” are now designated as depopulated areas, where the population has dropped by 30 percent or more But the system is strained. There’s already a since 1980. In many, older residents are orga- shortage of care workers; the government esti- nizing to adapt their communities to this new mates the country will need 700,000 more by reality. A housing development in Yokohama, 2040. Proposed fixes include raising their pay, on the other side of Honshu Island from Iwase, recruiting retirees and volunteers, promoting is emblematic of how aging is reshaping Japan nursing as a career, relying on robotics, and— from the ground up. last and likely to stay last—allowing more foreign workers. Immigrants from countries At Kamigo Neopolis, 868 detached homes such as Vietnam and the Philippines are working perch atop a steep hill. Daiwa House, one of in nursing homes, but there’s a tight cap on the Japan’s largest homebuilders, opened it in 1974 number of visas for skilled workers. Japanese to house the explosion of young families that insularity combined with the difficulty of learn- followed the postwar baby boom. Designed as ing the language makes it hard to fill the gap in a bedroom community for salarymen making care workers from abroad. the hour-and-a-half train commute to Tokyo, it’s one of 61 “neopolises.” In Kamigo, residents Meanwhile, the cost of benefits is escalating. could walk to shops and an elementary school. Social security expenses, which include public health care, long-term care, and pensions, tripled These days, more than half of Kamigo’s 2,000 between 1990 and 2022, financed by government residents are 65 and older. The school closed years debt. “The universal system we introduced has lots of advantages, and people are used to it,” says Hirotaka Unami, a senior aide to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. “To maintain that, we have to restore the balance between benefits and bur- dens. Otherwise it’s not sustainable.” The solution, he says, is fourfold: accelerate economic growth, incentivize more women and older adults to work, raise the consumption tax, and curb social security expenditures. “The goal is to have more elderly people be contributors to society rather than receivers,” Unami says. It’s a daunting list. Economic growth can’t be engineered at will. Tax increases are unpopular: It took Japan five years to raise the consumption tax from 8 percent to 10 percent. More than 70 percent of Japanese women 64 and younger already work, but mostly part-time because of poor childcare options and financial disincen- tives, including being paid less than men. The government is trying to raise the retire- ment age from 65, and people are working longer. In 2021, more than a third of Japanese companies let people work past 70; in 2016, only 21 percent did. Demographics leave no other option: By 2050, almost 38 percent of Japan’s population is projected to be 65 and over, putting enormous pressure on the labor force to support them. “I don’t think we’ve got good answers,” says Sagiri Kitao, an economist at the University of 74 N A T I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

LEFT As night falls at the Active Biwa nursing home in Otsu, a city near Kyoto, a robot patrols, quietly open- ing the door of each room to check on res- idents. If it detects anything unusual, it sends images to alert care workers. Many nursing homes are experimenting with technology designed to reduce demands on staff. BELOW Kazuko Kori, 89, talks to Telenoid at Yume Paratiis, a nursing home in Amagasaki, a city near Osaka. A caregiver speaks through it remotely. The android is being studied as a way to stimulate conversa- tions with people who have dementia. A N E W O L D A G E 75



Osamu Yamanaka, a physician who runs a clinic in Kotobu- kicho, a downtrodden section of Yokohama, checks on 74-year-old Kiichi Takahashi. He frequently calls on his older patients, many of whom live alone in cheap lodgings, their medical costs covered by Japan’s long-term care insurance system. “They don’t want to be in a home. They’re used to being inde- pendent,” he says. Yamanaka, who is 67, plans to continue his work for as long as he can. “I have no rea- son to stop,” he adds.

RIGHT Toyama, a city on the largest island, has striven to become a more hospitable place to grow old. One key initiative is the Kadokawa Preventive Care Center, which has exercise pools fed by hot springs. Every day, about 250 older adults work out at the facility. BELOW Taira and Ichi Katsuta, 89 and 85, who are happily married, have dementia. They live by themselves in a Tokyo apartment, often tell- ing each other stories that only they under- stand. In Japan, one in five people over 65 has dementia. 78 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

ago. The shops are gone. Weeds have taken over center’s restroom includes a deep sink reserved the four parks. Residents joke that “Neopolis,” for the disposal of ostomy-bag waste, a now which means “New Town,” is now “Old Town.” ubiquitous fixture in Japan marked by a distinc- tive icon outside bathroom doors. The Aeon shopping center at Kamigo’s train station, an 18-minute bus ride down the hill, has “We’re thinking about setting up a transporta- a whole aisle of nursing-care products, such as tion system to the hospital for people who can’t aprons for use while bathing an elderly parent, get around,” says Nobuyuki Yoshii, a 74-year-old disposal bags for adult diapers, odor-absorbing retiree and father of three. He moved to Kamigo cloths to hang on a bed rail, and bags of thicken- more than 40 years ago for its easy access to ing powder, called toromi, that’s used in drinks surfing and the then thriving jazz scene in down- and soups to help prevent choking. town Yokohama, a quick car ride to the north. For decades, Yoshii got up at 5 a.m. to commute As Kamigo’s population shrank and its inhab- to his architectural planning job in Tokyo, often itants aged, residents felt physically and socially returning at midnight. These days, he heads the isolated. A loose network evolved to check up on machizukuri committee. An on-site nursing-care one another, and that became a committee called clinic is also high on the wish list. Kamigo Machizukuri, a term for a distinctly Japanese form of bottom-up, collaborative com- Kamigo is one small example of how Japanese munity engagement. In 2016 the group started communities are working to enable aging in lobbying Daiwa House to create a central area place. Toyama, a city of more than 410,000 that for shopping and socializing. The result was a includes Iwase, is a more ambitious case study single-story building with a mini-mart, a produce in reimagining a city space, one now widely stand, five tables with chairs, and a video screen. praised as a model. The catalyst was Masashi There’s an outdoor terrace with benches. The Mori, who until 2021 was Toyama’s charismatic mayor for nearly 20 years. He traveled the world looking for ideas to accommodate the old. Inspired by light-rail systems in Portland, Oregon, and Strasbourg, France, Toyama installed trams that the elderly ride at a discount and can board without climb- ing any steps. They get into local attractions for free with grandchildren. The city turned a shut- tered school into a preventive-care center that functions as a health club for older adults, with gym equipment, classes, and waist-deep pools, one with a built-in walking path and handrails. “The more people walk, the less they spend on health,” says Mori, 69, now a pear farmer with a thick shock of dyed black hair and “Mr. Mori” embroidered on his shirt cuffs. “You’ve got to get them active and interacting with other people.” Mori is proud of Toyama’s work to cre- ate a more compact, navigable city. “We took the initiative early,” he notes. In Toyama’s rural areas, close to 40 percent of the population is over 65. They’re served by a gleaming care center that delivers home nurs- ing. “We’re seeing an increase in single sons living with their aging mothers, as well as lots of couples where both have dementia,” says Naoko Kobayashi, one of the center’s three doctors who work to ease the suffering of aging patients and also their exhausted families. “Dying is not an easy thing.” A N E W O L D A G E 79



Genyu Daito, 64, the chief priest of Banshoji, a Buddhist temple in Nagoya, prays in an LED-lit ossuary that highlights niches when they are selected by an electronic ID card. Inno- vative burial options are becoming popular as the tradition of fam- ily tombs declines.

The city has had less success dealing with the half, which can fold into a wheelchair. At more empty “ghost houses” that no one wants, espe- than $10,000, though, it isn’t cheap. cially those in which someone died alone. There are more than eight million of them around Other devices include a lavender-and-white Japan. Laws are slowly changing to enable local bathtub that looks like a cross between a giant governments to fine and publicly report delin- Easter egg and an isolation tank. A person in a quent property owners to shame them. It took wheelchair gets steered into the tub and sprayed Toyama five years in a drawn-out process to raze with soapy foam from all sides at the push of just three houses, barely making a dent in the a button, followed by warm water. But a full- more than 7,000 that are abandoned in the city. body soak is a cherished Japanese ritual that nursing homes try to provide. Yume Paratiis AT Y U M E PA R AT I I S , a pristine nursing home in prefers a rotating chair lift that gently lowers Amagasaki, near Osaka, a robot called the Hug residents into a tub. When Takeo Okuzono, 85, carefully transfers 98-year-old Kotoyo Shirai- is immersed, he reclines into the bath and closes shi from her wheelchair to her bed. Padded his eyes. “I’m sleepy,” he mumbles. armrests gently squeeze and support the tiny woman, who wears fleece pants and cushioned Sompo is working to make nursing care more slippers. Staff at the 116-resident home say the efficient. In one ongoing study, workers in 10 Hug enables aides to do lifting and lowering Sompo homes collect data from “smart bed” sen- tasks solo instead of in pairs. sors that detect whether residents are asleep, in bed but awake, or out of bed. The technology The nursing home industry, naturally, is enables 150 workers to check on 500 residents ground zero of the living lab that is Japan. The remotely instead of visiting every room at two- Hug is one of 20 technologies that Yume Paratiis hour intervals, according to Albert Chu, Sompo’s is testing, from room monitors to communica- chief digital officer. Sompo now uses the wired tion robots. The latter include Telenoid, which pads in nearly all its homes. “There are empty has nubs for limbs and a realistic but expression- wings in care homes because they can’t hire less face. It talks via a care worker who operates enough people,” Chu says. it from a distance. Telenoid wears an orange- and-white onesie and matching hat. “This is a Robotics can help—and the Japanese gov- boy, right?” asks 89-year-old Kazuko Kori, who ernment subsidizes their use—but they’re not tells it to sing her a song. Some residents open a panacea. Only a fifth of the nursing homes in up to it, staff members say; others are turned off. Japan use any type of robotics, according to a Hidenobu Sumioka of Kyoto-based ATR, who 2020 survey, and primarily for monitoring and helped create Telenoid, concedes that it’s not communication rather than helping lift, bathe, for everyone, but he envisions a future where and interact with residents. robots play a social role for people in nursing homes: “I’d like to use them to form more of a E V E N I N D U S T R I E S N OT E X P L I C I T LY focused on community, the way people used to live.” nursing care are tackling “aging society” prob- lems. In stark contrast to the incremental pace Among the most prominent companies of national fiscal reform, companies through- focused on aging is Sompo Holdings, one of out Japan, from conglomerates to start-ups, are Japan’s top insurance companies, which started experimenting with gusto. acquiring nursing homes in 2015. Sompo now owns around 400, making it one of the largest Some big companies are devising incentives to operators. The company is also the only business keep seniors active in ways that are equal parts running one of the eight living labs; the others marketing and corporate social responsibility. are overseen by research centers. Rakuten, Japan’s e-commerce giant, launched the app Rakuten Senior in 2019. It rewards steps Sompo’s Future Care Lab, in Tokyo, houses walked with points that can be used toward two spotless testing rooms tricked out like nurs- purchases, such as trial music lessons. Hitachi ing homes on steroids. Motion sensors on the partnered with the nationally funded Japan floors and walls detect falls and send alerts to Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) to caregivers’ phones. A high-tech bed made by create a “social participation encouragement” Panasonic has a mattress that splits down the app that aims to lower the cost of nursing care middle so a patient can be rolled onto the outer by keeping people active. The app measures out- door activity and ranks it in four categories, from 82 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Japan’s creative innovation were envied around the world until responses to the Lost Decade, a long stretch of stagnation its aging citizens that began in the 1990s. Although the coun- may become try remains a digital laggard, Japan’s creative a source of responses to its aging citizens may become a inspiration source of inspiration as the world grows older. as the world grows older. “You see next-generation talent thinking about aging as a big opportunity,” says Jin Mon- beginner to expert. It also recommends events tesano, a senior executive at Lixil, which sells to attend and pushes evidence of the benefits of bathroom and other housing products. One of social participation to users. Lixil’s newer items is a shower that dispenses cleansing foam from two adjustable bars that Hitachi says it’s in discussions with 70 busi- lower to wheelchair height. Increasingly focused nesses and municipalities about partnerships on aging in the home, the company is encour- that would link the app to elder-focused ser- aging employees to come up with more ideas. vices. Yuji Kamata, who leads the Hitachi team that developed the app, notes that the data will “Age tech” is also beginning to be seen as an also benefit JAGES, which does national surveys opportunity for Japanese start-ups. The amount every three years; now the information will be of venture capital in Japan is comparatively low digitized at a lower cost and provide real-time but growing. One VC funding recipient is Tokyo- results. The app is free. Hitachi hopes one day based LifeHub, which is developing a wheelchair to sell the anonymized data. that can raise its user to a standing position and can ascend stairs and escalators. “Wheelchair Even Daiwa House, spurred by Kamigo’s res- users want legs—healthy legs,” says Hiroshi idents, formed a new division, called Livness Nakano, LifeHub’s co-founder and CEO. Town Project, to adapt 10 more of its planned communities for aging. “We’re not doing this Start-ups are also taking on the most inti- to make money. It could be unprofitable,” says mate nursing tasks. Yoshimi Ui, an outgoing Koji Harano, who runs Livness. “But it has 33-year-old engineer, invented the Helppad, a social value. It helps our brand.” He hopes the mattress-odor sensor that detects and tracks company will market its aging-related housing excretions to make toileting care more efficient. expertise overseas. She runs her company, called Aba, out of a small two-story house near Tokyo. Ui grew up with an Other services have emerged to address the ailing, severely depressed grandmother at home ripple effect of solitary deaths. In 2020 more than and was troubled by her suffering. That moti- 4,200 people over 65 in Tokyo died alone. Many vated her to marry engineering know-how with companies now insure owners of rental units social impact. Ui says that her Helppad, which is against the risk of someone dying and going being tested in Sompo’s Future Care Lab, is used undiscovered on their properties, addressing at about a hundred Japanese nursing homes. the growing reluctance of landlords to rent to older tenants. Such policies cover the loss of Both LifeHub and Aba envision international rent as well as the cost of cleaning. Thousands sales. Aba, whose website proclaims, “Live well, of companies now specialize in residential deep die well, build the future,” is getting inquiries cleaning after a solitary death, a fate likely to from South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. become more common in Japan given that more than one in four adults 65 and older lives alone. Japan’s present challenges are our collective future. Just as no one wants to dwell on getting Japan’s economic prowess and industrial old, Ui says, most people don’t give nursing care a second thought until a parent becomes ill and the burden suddenly falls on them. She wants to change that mindset. Her vision, she says pas- sionately, is to “make the world a place where there’s nursing-care support everywhere.” j Sarah Lubman studied Japanese literature, lived in Japan, and has traveled there regularly over the past 15 years. Noriko Hayashi focuses on documenting social issues. She is based in Tokyo. A N E W O L D A G E 83

SEA OTTERS ARE THRIVING IN POCKETS ALONG THE COAST FROM CALIFORNIA TO ALASKA—BUT NOT EVERYONE IS HAPPY. BY CYNTHIA GORNEY P H OTO G R A P H S BY RALPH PACE A N D KILIII YÜYAN WHAT’S NOT At once calm and agile beneath rough surf, a young sea otter glides through Cali- fornia’s Monterey Bay, looking for mussels. The diving power of these mammals suits their enormous appe- tites; while foraging underwater, they typically find food in a minute or two. RALPH PACE

TO LOVE? 85

A female tucks paws beneath her chin as she dozes in a quiet Mon- terey Bay kelp patch. “I refer to their cute- ness as their publicity problem,” says Sea Otter Savvy head Gena Bentall, a biologist whose organization gives kayakers and other onlookers guide- lines for sensible behavior around wild sea otters. Smitten otter-watchers sometimes paddle too close, or even give chase, trying for the cutest photograph. RALPH PACE



A sea otter pup peruses one of the bay’s giant kelp fronds, foraging for crabs or snails to carry to the surface for a meal. Pockets improvised from loose skin under their armpits make fine transport storage. Next stop: the seabed, to search for mussels, clams, and urchins. RALPH PACE



THE SCRUNCHED Monterey Bay Aquar- FACE OF OTTER 820 ium’s Sandrine Hazan, PRESSED AGAINST her shape and smell THE GRILLE OF disguised, feeds a res- HER CARRYING BOX, cued sea otter pup. AND SHE WAS SQUEALING, These “Darth Vader” suits help prevent juve- the way sea otters do when they’re panicked or niles from associating indignant or calling for their kin. (Think of a humans with comfort gull’s cry, but sharper.) She had dark eyes, deep or food once they’re brown fur, and a radio transmitter implanted in returned to the wild. her belly. She was 16 months old, a sea otter ado- lescent, and unsettling events had so far marked CHARLIE HAMILTON JAMES the whole course of her life. Abandoned as a newborn, lifted into a truck by rescuers, bottle- fed by black-cloaked humans, and raised by a sea otter foster mother in an outdoor aquarium pool, 820 was one small part of a long ecologi- cal experiment—an atonement, of sorts, for the massacre of her species more than a century ago. So she was in a box. The box was on the deck of an inflatable motorboat. She scrabbled her paws against the box floor and walls. “We’ll see how this goes,” Karl Mayer said. It was a late summer morning, and Mayer and his colleague Sandrine Hazan were animal care specialists with California’s Monterey Bay Aquar- ium, the gray structure receding in the fog as Mayer gunned the boat into deeper waters. Inside the aquarium, a crowd was already forming 90 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminat- ing and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Explorer Kiliii Yüyan’s work document- ing human communities and the natural world since 2021. ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY RALPH PACE AND KILIII YÜYAN IMAGES TAKEN UNDER U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE PERMITS 37946D AND 37085D

SURFACE SLEEPING COAT CARE In kelp forests, sea otters cling to seaweed as an anchor to It takes regular grooming to avoid drifting while they sleep. maintain an insulating and buoy- ant layer of air in dense otter fur. Great white sharks sometimes attack otters—which they rarely eat—mistaking them for seals. SUITED OCEAN NEWCOMERS FOR THE SEA Whales and seals developed blubber of years. Sea otters evolved only with Sea otters, with the animal and have different but ingenious ada kingdom’s thickest fur, can spend their entire lives Flat tail Lar in water; river otters, their distant cousins, spend two- 25% thirds of their time on land. For sea otters to maintain of total length this marine lifestyle— thriving in frigid seas Round tail inhospitable to their furry mammal relatives—they 40% must constantly produce and conserve body heat. IN BALANCE STRATEGIC STRENGTH Sea otters have strong Purple sea urchin Kelp forests in California’s hind limbs and webbed Strongylocentrotus Monterey Bay recovered feet, which frees their after urchin-eating otter paws for finding and purpuratus populations rebounded. grabbing food on dives. Fish stocks also recovered; River otters rely more KELP FOREST kelp beds often support on full-body undulation. fish nurseries. OUT OF BALANCE FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA, CHRISTINE FELLENZ, AND EVE C Sea otters have voracious SOURCES: JAMES BODKIN, BIOLOGIST EMERITUS, U.S. GEO appetites for bivalves and other invertebrates, especially clams and sea urchins. Without otters, overabundant urchins can decimate kelp forests.

STAYING ON TOP TOOL TRICKS Sea otters use rocks to dislodge Sea otters conserve energy be- prey, then swim to the surface to cause they float; river otters must smash shells and eat their catch. swim to remain at the surface. Clam Rock r for warmth over tens of millions SOUTHERN hin the past three million years SEA OTTER aptations to keep warm. Enhydra lutris nereis 100 lb max Guard hairs Skin Muscle Minimal 3.9% 4 ft, 10 in max Underhairs body fat of body weight Loose flaps of Air layer 2% underarm skin can 1.4% store food and of body weight favored rock tools. 12% rge webbed feet Fur density 450,000 NORTH AMERICAN 900,000 hairs per square inch RIVER OTTER Lontra canadensis hairs per square inch Matted 34 lb max underhairs 4 ft, 6 in max Air Daily consumption as bubbles a share of body weight Guard hairs 25% 14%Sea River otter otter Underhairs Air layer, Air trapped in under- HAIRS LUNG POWER BODY LIKE A FURNACE FELTED FUR 1/5 in hairs insulates against SHOWN Long guard hairs flatten cold ocean waters. ACTUAL Large lungs add buoy- Sea otters eat large quanti- down and block water Skin SIZE ancy at the surface and ties to feed a strategically from a lower layer of provide a store of oxy- inefficient metabolism. scaled underhairs. When gen to the circulatory Their mitochondria—the grooming, otters mat, system during forag- energy centers in cells— or felt, their underhairs ing dives that can last continuously emit heat to together to trap air. nearly eight minutes. keep their bodies warm. CONANT, NGM STAFF. MESA SCHUMACHER OLOGICAL SURVEY, ALASKA SCIENCE CENTER; RANDALL DAVIS, TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

SINGLE MOMS short to protect vulnerable pups from eagles and other predators. Pups are so buoyant they can’t dive until they’re two months old. DEADLY TRADE, PROMISING REBOUND There may have been as many as 300,000 sea otters before the rise of the global fur trade in 1741. By 1911, they were nearly extinct, and the first legal protections were put in place. Many populations are steadily growing today. North Pole ARCTIC OCEAN ASIA CANADA NORTH A RUSSIA ALASKA MERI UNITED (U.S.) Sitka B.C. S TAT E S OkSheoatsokf Ketchikan WASH. Sakhalin OREG. C en. Bering Prince A William Kamchatka P Sea Pribilof Sound Prince of Is. Wales I. Commander Halibut Is. Cove Vancouver Kuril Islands Amchitka I. Islands Island JAPAN Aleutian San Francisco Bay CALIFORNIA MEX. Historic range Monterey Bay of sea otters N Baja OCEA California PA C I F I C 500 mi 500 km COUNTING OTTERS Russian Northern Southern Enhydra lutris lutris Enhydra lutris kenyoni Enhydra lutris nereis The three subspecies are categorized by geo- 7,500 109,500 3,000 graphically separate populations. Biological (Population in 2012) (2021) (2019) differences are small; estimates are based on regional surveys. MAP SOURCES: JAMES BODKIN; EKATERINA OVSYANIKOVA AND OTHERS, MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE, 2020; MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION; U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE; FISHERIES AND OCEANS CANADA

Tlingit fur artist Christy Ruby heads home after a day’s hunt off Prince of Wales Island. As an Indigenous Alaskan, Ruby is permitted by law to harvest sea otters, as long as they are only used for sub- sistence or for tradi- tional handicrafts—fur clothing in her case. “I don’t take it lightly when I take a life,” Ruby says. “It’s ances- tral. It’s in my blood.” KILIII YÜYAN

around the glass-walled sea otter tank; from the no such wisdom. By 1911, when a treaty curtailed perspective of the tank’s residents, the human the international seal and sea otter fur trade, species must sometimes appear as one endless a few sparse clusters were all that remained of lineup of goofy smiles and raised cell phones. A the sea otter population that had once ringed the couple of undulating laps, a little nose-rubbing Pacific—between 150,000 and 300,000, from Baja with the paws, a quick session of Bang Plastic California in Mexico up into the northern islands Ball Against Rocks—everything seems to provide off Alaska, Russia, and Japan. extreme amusement for the bipeds on the other side of the glass. Pop a whiskery head out of the Now, in waters off the North American conti- water and pick a couple of gawkers to flirt with: nent, a different kind of human intervention has happy mayhem, guaranteed. been helping sea otters survive and spread once again. Are they thriving? Touchy question. Is this There are semi-rational explanations for peo- a happy ending? Touchier question. What about ple’s ardor at the sight of sea otters, and you the latest ideas for hurrying that spread along— can hear experts tick them off: 1. Sea otters are reintroducing sea otters to more places they tool users; they pick up appropriately shaped once inhabited, like San Francisco Bay? Raise stones, roll over, and position the stones on that question among debating partisans, espe- their stomachs as shellfish-smashing devices. cially people who make their living catching the 2. They’re among the world’s smallest marine shellfish that multiplied when no sea otters were mammals, and they swim on their backs, which around to eat them, and, well, brace yourself. It’s is weirdly entertaining to watch. 3. Something complicated, figuring out how tough, carnivo- about their faces, the fur, a furry little animal rous predators fit into a world that changed while being graceful in the sea … they were gone, and amid this collision of opin- ions about Enhydra lutris there was something And here the experts tend to give up, yielding comforting about the precision of the morning’s to the obvious. “When people ask me about them, task: Help otter 820 get safely back to sea. I have to be very professional, with my game face on,” Hazan told me. “But when no one’s around, Mayer quieted the engine, studying the we definitely use the c-word.” Cute, she means. gray-green water. The rescue sea otters at So relentless is sea otter cuteness that people the Monterey aquarium are numbered rather who work all day with them, while not immune than named, to keep sentiment in check; the plan to it, can find it exasperating. The notion that is to return them, if possible, to the wild. Otter wild sea otters hold each other’s paws, for exam- 820 arrived at the facility’s intensive care unit— ple, to keep from drifting apart: Winsome but someone phoned in a beached-pup sighting; wrong. (Sorry.) Some years ago, two sea otters at rescuers drove out to scoop her up—between an aquarium were photographed floating paw in otters 819 and 821. Today’s try at releasing her paw; those images have kept up a robust internet was a second attempt, as a few months ear- presence, but there’s no reliable evidence that lier she’d failed the first: Mayer and Hazan sea otters regularly do this in open water. It is transmitter-tracked her as she wandered about, true that they hug their pups while swimming ate too little, kept losing weight. When they on their backs. It is also true that they sometimes finally brought her back in, she was so wasted converge into “rafts,” giving the impression of she slumped without protest into their net. companions gathered for a pleasant group float. “We restored her to normal weight and Sea otters can be ferocious, though. They’re health,” Mayer said. “Now we’re trying again.” predators: carnivorous and tough. They have He nodded at Hazan, who pushed 820’s box to jaws and teeth that crush clamshells and rip the edge of the motorboat, tipped it down, and the guts out of spiky littler animals. Their near- threw open the door. extinction story is a brutal eco-drama that commences in the 1700s, when Russian sailors A NEWBORN SEA OTTER exploring the Aleutian Islands learned what Indigenous Pacific coastal people already knew: weighs about five pounds, resembles a fur pil- Sea otters are covered with the thickest, most low with eyeballs, and for the next few months luxuriant fur in the world. The coastal people needs a mother for everything—not just food also prized those pelts, but they hunted at an otter-sustaining pace; the new hunters possessed 98 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

but also the most basic instruction in staying a sea otter,” Mayer says. “They’d follow you alive. The adult males don’t stick around to around. You couldn’t lose your sea otter pup if help, and the pups don’t instinctively under- you wanted to.” stand how to grab shellfish off the seabed, crack Trial and error taught the humans too. Wild open a crab’s back, or stash smashing stones sea otters must not associate the sight and under their armpits as they swim. They have smell of people with comfort or food, so the to be shown how to groom constantly, fluffing bottle-feeders improvised what they called their coats and blowing air into the underfur; sea otters have no blubber, and the famous fur is a thick insu- lation system for keeping them warm in the water, SEA OTTERS HAVE NO where they spend most of BLUBBER, AND THE their time. In the Pacific a FAMOUS FUR IS A sea otter with matted fur or skin wounds can quickly freeze to death. The Monterey Bay Aquar- ium has been experimenting THICK INSULATION SYSTEM with sea otter recovery ever since it opened in 1984, with FOR KEEPING THEM its focus on the region’s WARM IN THE WATER. marine life. Some of the last surviving sea otters off Cal- ifornia lived not far from Monterey; scientists call these southern sea otters, to distinguish them from the northerns near and above the Canadian border. Before long, reports of injured or stranded southerns Darth Vader disguises: black mask, gloves, dark set in motion a remarkable sequence of rescue poncho to alter the human shape. Eventually, to and rehab at the new aquarium. In-house vet- minimize even more the contact between pups erinarians performed emergency otter surgery. and people, the aquarium’s biologists decided One area, closed to the public, became a sea otter to try having the resident adult female sea neonatal ward. otters take over the motherly finishing school. Then, because even healthy pups still had These were rescues that for various reasons had to learn how to grow up, staff members began been declared unsuitable for release back into stepping in as substitute mothers. Mayer no lon- the wild but might still intuitively understand ger works at the aquarium, but during his early what to do—how to foster a pup, teach it to years there as an animal scientist, his duties forage and stay warm, prepare it for meeting included some all-nighters on the aquarium’s others in the sea. sea otter waterbed, soothing and bottle-feeding No aquarium had ever tried such a thing. But an anxious pup. He would carry a pup into the the first of the surrogate mothers (as the biolo- bay with him, a weight belt over his wet suit, gists labeled them) inspected their new charges, and demonstrate diving for shellfish while his clearly grasped the task at hand, and got to work. pupil watched from above. He used his teeth to That was more than 20 years ago. The popula- crack the shells of live crabs—more parental- tion of southern sea otters is currently estimated style demonstration—while floating on his at about 3,000, an encouraging if still modest back. He put shells on his chest and pounded advance toward true recovery; they are scattered them with rocks. up and down the middle third of California’s “We’d essentially model what it was to be coast, with 100 to 150 living in the protected W H AT ’ S N O T T O L O V E ? 99

While their mothers feed together from a shallow mussel bed in Monterey Bay, stay- ing close enough to keep a watchful eye, these two pups meet for a playdate: They cavort, chase each other, and take turns giving shoulder rides. RALPH PACE



Monterey Bay slough the aquarium has used as a prime release spot. Wild sea otters now share that inlet with surrogate-raised sea otters and their descendants, all of which seem to have figured out how to yank crabs and clams from the mucky bottom. Where smashing rocks are scarce, they improvise by using empty clam- shells or by bashing hard-shelled prey against boat hulls and dock pilings. They’re surviving. They’re raising their young. They’re satisfying their prodigious appetites. And here, problematically, is the 21st-century sea otter conundrum: their appetites. S E A OT T E R S E AT A LOT. have. And some people are not.” Case in point: commercial shellfish harvesters. The daily intake of an adult sea otter can weigh about a quarter what the otter weighs; lactating “Like setting off a nuclear bomb,” a dive fish- mothers need even more. They eat shellfish, erman named Jeremy Leighton told me one and the about-a-quarter calculation doesn’t afternoon in a waterfront café, describing sea- include the shells. (For one 60-pound adult sea beds he’s seen in the wake of hungry-sea-otter otter, picture about 15 pounds of shellfish meat.) foraging. “Everything getting wiped out, in a Within their Pacific surroundings, sea otters are radius, as they expand.” a keystone species, the term biologists use for animals or plants that are especially important Leighton lives in Ketchikan, Alaska. He was to the ecosystems in which they live. Those giant born in Alaska, as were his father and grand- otter appetites, plus their choice of prey, can mother. His catch includes geoduck, a large, maintain—or restore—a healthy equilibrium in burrowing clam, and sea cucumber, another their part of the sea. shellfish. His territory is Southeast Alaska, cur- rently the global epicenter of people hostile to sea Among the shellfish sea otters eat, for otters. It was here that I heard them described instance, are urchins. Urchins eat kelp, so with- as “an infestation” (a Haida tribal leader) and “a out the otters around to hold their numbers down, grazing urchins can take down whole forests of kelp. And scientists are learning that kelp forests, along with seagrasses that flourish when sea otters are present, play their own cru- cial roles in marine resilience. Kelp tangles make protective nurseries for baby finfish, increasing the number and variety of adult fish. Seagrasses filter out water contaminants and lock carbon into the sediment. “Sea otters have huge effects,” says research ecologist Tim Tinker, a University of California, Santa Cruz adjunct professor who is one of the world’s leading sea otter experts and has spent decades studying both the northern and south- ern populations. “That’s why understanding them is so important. When they’re removed from an ecosystem or put back into an ecosys- tem, everything changes. And that’s disruptive. Some people are going to like the effects they 102 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

On a commercial dive boat, Jared Ellis fin- ishes hauling up sea cucumbers harvested by boat owner Craig Thomas. As shellfish- hungry sea otters have spread throughout other parts of South- east Alaska, they’ve so far mostly stayed away from this spot, Kasaan Bay. But wandering sea otters are now sighted here from time to time. “We see it as a matter of time,” says Ellis, who works in construction in the summer but hopes to become a career dive fisherman. “It’s scary, for sure.” KILIII YÜYAN disaster” (a commercial crabber, glaring at the Wildlife Service–supported study put the South- water off his boat). Also this, from a man who’s east Alaska count at more than 27,000 sea otters. fished the area for almost 40 years: “Actually one Canadian scientists estimate that another 8,000 of the most destructive things on the planet.” live along British Columbia’s coast. To be fair, that last description was prefaced Why the huge difference in comeback num- by “cute and fuzzy and cuddly and all that stuff, bers, northerns versus southerns? The reasons but actually …” The speaker was Ed Hansen, start with human intervention more than a who works with a group called the Southeast half century ago, when the U.S. government Alaska Fishermen’s Alliance; his wife, Kathy, is was holding underground nuclear tests on executive director. They appreciate the popular Amchitka Island, a thousand miles west of main- appeal, in other words. But their version of the land Alaska. Amchitka is part of the Aleutians, modern sea otter story is one of good intentions and although that’s the very archipelago where gone awry—because unlike their southern rela- the hunt to near extinction began, by the mid- tives, northern sea otters in recent decades have 1960s, some of the world’s remaining wild sea multiplied prolifically in waters from which otters could still be found there—remnant col- they had once vanished. A 2021 U.S. Fish and onies, biologists called them. After shock waves W H AT ’ S N O T T O L O V E ? 103



A sea otter grouping, like this cluster in Alaska’s Halibut Cove, is called a raft. The genders tend to split up by raft: all females, with pups and often one territorial male, or all males. Together they groom and rest between bouts of the vigorous foraging that frustrates shellfish- harvesting humans. “It’s a long-term relationship we are in,” says scientist Tim Tinker. “Humans and sea otters have to basically re-figure out how we coexist.” KILIII YÜYAN

from the first test blast in 1965 killed hundreds the kind of Alaska Native sea otter hunting of these otters, Alaska Department of Fish and and skin sewing the law does permit—though Game officials began an extraordinary series it’s been a challenge to build a viable sea otter of relocation airlifts: Over the next seven years fur industry, given the many restrictions as to more than 700 sea otters were pulled from the how pelts may be obtained and used. He’s also Aleutians and Prince William Sound, flown east, intrigued by the situation off the coast of his and lowered into the water in ancestral Pacific hometown, Sitka: In the early 2000s, advanc- Northwest sea otter territory. ing sea otters were out there hoovering up the shellfish—crabs, abalones, gumboot chitons, The otters released off Oregon didn’t make urchins—that locals had harvested for genera- it; by 1981, they’d scattered or died. The otters tions. Recently, though, the sea otter numbers put in off Washington State hung in along one have dropped in Sitka Sound, and the shellfish stretch of coastal waters, their numbers grow- stock is improving. Is this because of the Native ing steadily but slowly. In Southeast Alaska hunters, prompted by that cultural initiative, and British Columbia, though, the relocators who have made it a point to shoot their otters set sea otters into the coastline’s multiple bays in those waters? Not enough to wipe sea otters and inlets, which turned out to be ideal pro- out of the sound, but enough to send a warning tected settings for rapid—some Alaskans would to stay away? say explosive—population growth. The females had pups (seven to 10 in a lifetime is typical). “Otters are smart,” Miller says. “We didn’t The pups grew up and had pups. The expand- have to take them all out.” Tribal knowledge ing colonies moved into more bays and inlets, and scholarly research support the idea that sea looking for food. otters learn to recognize and avoid danger areas and that Indigenous people may have once used HERE’S WHAT THE 1972 site-specific sea otter hunting to protect desig- nated shellfish areas. There’s no question that Marine Mammal Protection Act says about kill- they did live amid an abundance of shellfish and ing any such animal, including a sea otter, in sea otters—long ago, to be sure, before there was the United States: You can’t. Criminal offense. refrigerated transport plus a global appetite for You can’t “harass” a marine mammal, either. the animals that sea otters eat. Now Miller is part There are a very few exemptions, including of an ongoing meeting of Southeast Alaska “sea one that applies to Alaska’s Native people, otter stakeholders,” as they label themselves— who may hunt sea otters for “subsistence” or fish and game officials, tribal members, scien- for “authentic Native articles of handicraft tists, and commercial fishermen—all trying to and clothing,” as in skinning them and using work out a modern plan for sharing resources their pelts only in the ways the law details. with a keystone animal that humans came so close to wiping out. This means that if you’re watching sea otters eat your family’s livelihood, the MMPA says “It’s important for us to relearn how to coex- there’s nothing you can do about it, Alaska ist with sea otters,” Tim Tinker says. “Humans Native or not. (Canada has similar prohibi- had learned that. And then for 150 years arriving tions, but with no exemptions for its Indigenous Europeans learned how not to.” First Nations.) “The MMPA wasn’t written for ever dealing with overabundance,” says Mike No specific proposals have emerged from the Miller, a Sitka Tribal Council member who Alaska discussions, but there are people watch- chairs Alaska’s Indigenous People’s Council ing closely from the western edge of the lower for Marine Mammals. “But if you look at their 48, especially around San Francisco Bay and the overall impact on ocean health, there’s a positive Oregon coast. Both regions are under serious side to otters too. There’s got to be something study as reintroduction sites—shellfish-rich close to balance someplace.” waters that once supported thousands of sea otters and could perhaps do so again. And in Sea otters have occupied quite a bit of Miller’s both places, healthy sea otter colonies might time since the turn into this century. He’s part improve the water quality and plant life while of a cultural initiative to teach and encourage delighting tourists. The local dive industry and crab fisheries’ wary response: We’re part of the ecosystem too. 106 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C