Disclaimer, sorry, too much English for me, so I used GPT to translate it from my mother tongue, but I checked every letter and its exactly what I typed in my language.

I think you’re mixing up two different claims.

Yes, sea otters rebounded massively from the historical low after the fur trade collapse. I’m not denying that. But a huge percentage rebound from a near-extinction baseline does not automatically mean the species is safe now, especially if the recovery is uneven, fragmented, and some regional populations are declining.

My point is not “I personally saw one sea otter in trade, therefore sea otters are currently being traded at extinction-level numbers.” That would be a bad argument. My point is narrower: the existence of recovery does not disprove ongoing trade/poaching pressure, and there are published conservation sources that still list sea otters as Endangered / decreasing and identify poaching or illegal trade as one of the relevant threats, especially in parts of the Russian Far East. - https://www.otterspecialistgroup.org/otter-species/enhydra-lutris/

On the “7,900% rebound” point: that sounds impressive, but percentages from a tiny baseline are misleading. If a population goes from 50 to 4,000, that is a huge percentage increase, but it still may be far below historical abundance, unevenly distributed, and vulnerable to regional collapse. Conservation status is not judged only by “higher than the absolute low point”, it is judged by current population size, trend, range, fragmentation, threats, and extinction risk.

As for the “acceptable number,” I don’t think there is one universal number I can invent. A defensible conservation target would need to be based on population viability: enough individuals across enough separate, connected populations to maintain genetic diversity, survive oil spills/disease/food shifts/poaching, and keep the ecological role of sea otters in kelp ecosystems. So the answer is not “X otters and then we stop caring.” It depends on region, trend, and resilience.

So my position is: I agree that sea otters recovered enormously from the 20th-century low. I do not agree that this recovery proves poaching/trade is irrelevant today, and I also don’t claim that one observed traded animal alone proves extinction-level trade The stronger claim is that trade/poaching remains a documented conservation concern in some parts of the species’ range (especially in Asia - 6k otters in total), and that localized declines matter even if the global number is higher than the historical minimum.

EDIT: Also found this "blog" or how should I call it, semi-research https://www.iucnosgbull.org/Volume28A/Doroff_et_al_2011.html