Its diet includes prey species that are also valued by humans as food, leading to conflicts between sea otters and fisheries.

Sea otters, whose numbers were once estimated at 150,000-300,000, were hunted extensively for their fur between 1741 and 1911, and the world population fell to 1,000-2,000 individuals living in a fraction of their historic range. A subsequent international ban on hunting, sea otter conservation efforts, and reintroduction programs into previously populated areas have