UPDATE
Jul 20, 2023 11:38 AM CDT
A sea otter that has drawn national attention for its unique ability to steal surfboards from surfers and then hop aboard them continues to elude capture, reports the Los Angeles Times. This week, for example, California wildlife officials went out to the otter's known area by boat and put a surfboard into the water as a lure. Sure enough, the critter hopped on the board. But each time the wildlife officials would try to bring the board back to the boat by rope, it would hop off and swim away. Authorities hope to rehome the animal before it, or a surfer, gets hurt.
Jul 13, 2023 9:40 AM CDT
Surfers off the coast of Santa Cruz, California, now have to worry about more than bad weather and riptides. That's because an especially ornery southern sea otter is wreaking havoc there, approaching surfers and forcing them off their surfboards, then hopping on the boards herself—sometimes even gnawing on them. "This may seem cute but it's not," tweeted Mark Woodward, who the Guardian notes has been taking pictures of local sea otters harassing people for a few weeks. Accompanying his tweet were several photos of "Otter 841" perched atop someone's surfboard. "This sea otter was very aggressive and the surfer actually abandoned his board and swam to shore."
Woodward also recently tweeted a video of one surfer trying to fend off the 5-year-old otter, who wasn't deterred even when the surfer shook and flipped the board. Per NBC News, Otter 841 has been "stalking" surfers for months, but the New York Times reports that she's been involved in odd interactions for a couple of years, starting with a 2021 incident in which she climbed aboard a watercraft. Despite sea otters usually going out of their way to avoid humans, this otter "grew more bold" over time, the paper notes, adding that such interactions with female sea otters are sometimes spurred by hormonal surges, or because they've become acclimated to humans.
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Gena Bentall of the nonprofit Sea Otter Savvy says otters that bite humans have to be put down—a blow to a species that numbers just a few thousand. Federal and state wildlife authorities say they're working with the Monterey Bay Aquarium to track down the otter, get her out of the water, and then relocate her to a better place. The Times notes, however, that "multiple" previous attempts to capture Otter 841 have failed. "She's been quite talented at evading us," the aquarium's Jessica Fujii tells the paper. (More sea otter stories.)
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