SAN DIEGO, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- A rare sea otter has been spotted in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego Bay, a sign the state's population of the animals is spreading south, experts said.

Otters once ranged along the Pacific coast from Baja California to northern Japan but were nearly wiped out by hunting starting in the 1700s, leaving only remnant populations in Alaska and the central California Coast, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Sunday.


The otter was spotted by a group of sea bird enthusiasts returning from a bird watching trip by boat.

Some of the birders who have been on the water in San Diego for 40 years said they've never seen an otter in all that time.

"It is well known that young males will sometimes travel very far from their range and so it is easily possible that they have been here," said Paul Dayton, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. "I have never seen one (locally).

"However, they are moving south now and they are south of Point Conception, heading toward Santa Barbara -- but not there yet -- so the swim to our area is getting shorter and I expect to start hearing about some of them showing up pretty soon."

Southern sea otters were protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act in 1977.