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Conservation genetic techniques and considerations of the evolutionary potential of a species are increasingly being applied to species conservation. For example, effective population size (N_e) estimates are useful for determining the conservation status of species, yet accurate estimates of current N_e remain difficult to obtain. The effective population size can contribute to setting federal delisting criteria, as was done for the southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis). After being hunted to near extinction during the North Pacific fur trade, the southern sea otter has recovered over part of its former range, but remains at relatively low numbers, making it desirable to obtain accurate and consistent estimates of N_e. Although theoretical papers have compared the validity of several methods, comparisons of estimators using empirical data in applied conservation settings are limited. We combined thirteen years of …