Hope you research your other reports better than this one. This law did absolutely nothing to protect Sea Otters. It did put money into the organizations that sponsered the legis. Now isn't that nice.

Yep the cat feces are perfectly safe in those solid plastic bags. Birds, rats etc. won't be able to get in those solid plastic bags. Better yet, those big machines compacting and running over those unbreakable plastic bags will protect the sea otters from the nasty parasite in the feces in those unbreakable solid plastic bags.

Makes good TV though with cute sea otters.

According to a report put out today by the USGS, the California sea otter population is in decline for the second year in a row. Sea otters are a federally listed threatened species.

Tim Tinker of the USGS Western Ecological Research Center and lead scientist for the annual survey notes, “We have seen a decrease in sea otter numbers throughout most of their range, particularly in those areas where most of their reproduction occurs.” “A number of human and natural factors may be influencing this trend, and we are working to better understand what those are.”

The data suggests increased mortality, particularly in breeding-age females as a main factor. Otters are dying in higher than usual numbers from multiple causes, including infectious disease, toxin-exposure, heart failure and malnutrition.

Since sea otters live in the near-shore coastal waters, they are directly exposed to pollutants running off land and into the ocean. “Remember, sea otter health can tell us a lot about the health of the coastal waters that humans also enjoy,” Tinker says. “So, we’re eager to learn more.”

If you want to learn more, see: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2560

And to see additional graphs, maps and data summaries of the survey results go to: http://www.werc.usgs.gov/seaottercount

A quote from the bulletin, above:
"The most effective way for pet owners to limit their pet’s contribution to source water
contamination is to simply clean up and dispose of pet waste. As long as the droppings are not
mixed with other materials, pet waste should be flushed down the toilet. This allows waste to
be properly treated by a community sewage plant or septic system … "

Also, a subsequent study of the sea otter toxo problem found the problem was not concentrated at areas where urban sewage plant runoffs entered the ocean, but in areas where storm water runoff, streams, etc., entered the ocean. There are more feral cats in the the U.S. than domestic ones (some estimates say 78 million compared to 73 million). None of them are using the toilet. They're also far more likely to be infected with toxo since they catch and eat live game. (In fact, some naturalists estimate as many as 60 per cent of all wild animals have, or have had, toxo.)

Certainly no one wants to see sea otters disappear. But blaming house cats for their problems seems a bit of oversimplification. There's a heck of a lot of crap in the oceans, all of it our fault. Hopefully research will continue.

But at this point, keeping your cat indoors and using the toilet would seem to be the best bet for the environment. As well as giving small wildlife and birds — especially birds, which are under siege by domestic cats across the continent — a much-needed break, it also means you're not adding to the local landfill and your cat is prevented from eating the raw game that's the source of Toxo in the first place. (And then leaving droppings outdoors that will definitely enter the watershed, and be completely untreated when they do so.)

As for the water used to flush the toilet, why do so? It's a pretty tiny bit of urine, after all. I think it can wait! (That's got nothing to do with the cat, anyway; I believe that very few actually flush.)

As for this parasite being the cause of otter population decimation, I would think it would be more logical / probable, that if it were something coming from the sewage treatment, it would be from the chemicals / cleaning products that people flush down their drains. Since most of those things can be filtered out at water treatment facilities, it would follow, that so would toxoplasma gondii.

Cats have been around for abotu as long as otters i'm sure, and have this organism in their excrement almost as long. Otters have come into contact with it in the past too I would imagine.

If my waste can be treated and deemed 'safe', my cat's going into the treatment facility can be as well.

If the otter population is not growing as well as previously, maybe it has more to do with warming ocean waters, food supply problems, or contaminated food supply. Otters eat a lot of clams and such, and these creatures need fairly cold waters in which to thrive.

Nothing like California to jump the gun and not have all the facts. I'm glad that there is concern for the health of wildlife, but come on folks, let's think a bit logically here, so we can find the REAL culprit.

While I flush my kitty litter, it's made from corn and not clay. Never flush clay based litters, as they will solidify in water, and become glue=like and potetially cause major plumbing issus.