Wildlife authorities in a small motorboat with an antenna, surfboard and net spent a foggy morning Wednesday drifting by the seaweed beds off the cliffs near the Santa Cruz lighthouse and its legendary Steamer Lane surf break, hoping for a break of their own.
For weeks now, they’ve tried to nab Otter 841, an international sensation since images of her commandeering surfboards — and sometimes chewing on them — went viral on social media but raised fears the adorable aquatic fur-ball could pose a risk to the public. After Wednesday’s fruitless effort, the crew packed it in and motored away empty handed.
“It’s pretty funny, ” surfer Dylan Reisig, 25, of Santa Cruz, said of the ongoing cat-and-mouse game. With signs posted along the stairways leading down to the ocean warning of the “aggressive sea otter,” Reisig admitted, “I was honestly worried about it a little bit.”
But like many other locals and tourists who’ve flocked to West Cliff Drive to see the spectacle play out, he’s rooting for Otter 841 to remain wild.
“We’re in its environment,” Reisig said. “I don’t think we should be catching it.”
One surfer was seen strolling West Cliff Drive in an otter mask; “Keep 841 Free” painted on his board. San Jose State Environmental Studies Professor Dustin Mulvaney posted a photo on Twitter of the otter appearing to flip the bird at her would-be captors.
“She is taunting them!!” Mulvaney tweeted.
She is taunting them!! pic.twitter.com/bpS5zbcykf
— Dustin Mulvaney (@DustinMulvaney) July 18, 2023
Illustrator Weshoyot Alvitre whipped out a 841 Santa Cruz Locals Only meme of the otter gripping a chewed-up surfboard and giving the one-finger salute.
Santa cruz(tm) sent me a cease and desist fir the last one, folks already stealing the art without permission, do me a favor and just share to highlight the BS going down with #otter841 and her freedom. Humans need to step down. pic.twitter.com/AuhDMWGGLL
— Weshoyot Alvitre (@weshoyot) July 19, 2023
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is overseeing the capture plan, said in a statement Wednesday that “capture may take days or weeks given logistical considerations, the sea otter’s behavior, and shifting environmental conditions, such as water clarity.”
“Crews make daily decisions whether to proceed with capture attempts based on these conditions,” the agency said.
But curiously, the outlaw otter’s aggressive interactions with surfers and kayakers that started in June and picked up earlier this month have ceased over the last week.
And that may buy her, and her hapless would-be captors, a reprieve.
“If ocean conditions prevent successful capture efforts, or if the interactions with people cease, capture efforts may be suspended or halted entirely,” the federal agency said. “The purpose of the capture efforts is to eliminate the potential risks posed to both people and the sea otter associated with the current interactions.”
The southern sea otter, a beagle-sized creature that dines on crab and sea urchins, once was hunted to near extinction for its luxuriously thick fur. The surviving population of a few dozen animals that eluded hunters off the rugged Big Sur coast has rebounded since the 1970s to about 3,000, thanks to protection under the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act.
Otters — said to have the bite force of a black bear — normally avoid surfers, kayakers and swimmers. But Native Santa Cruz photographer Mark Woodward captured multiple instances in recent weeks of the female aggressively approaching surfers, hopping onto and biting their boards. He remains convinced her capture is necessary “for her own good.”
Her antics may be in her genes. The 5-year-old female was born in captivity in 2018 when her mother, found abandoned and nursed to health at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, was recaptured after too many interactions with boaters that raised concerns about her ability to thrive in the wild.
Aquarium staff and wildlife officials released the young Otter 841 — her ID tag number — to the ocean in 2020 as soon as she was weaned. But after she also began approaching kayakers and surfers last fall, they began a “hazing” program of trying to scare her away from people. That seemed to work — until recently.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said the otter’s recent menacing behavior raised concerns because the animals “have very strong jaws,” may carry diseases they could transmit to a person they bite, and risk “potentially fatal intestinal blockage from consuming styrofoam” after biting surfboards.
But the agency insisted that even if the pesky otter bites someone, “euthanasia is not under consideration now, nor would it be in the future for this sea otter.” Instead, she’d likely be back in captivity for good at an aquarium, just like her mom, Otter 723, now known as Millie at Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific.
The hands-on capture effort is being done by California Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists and Monterey Bay Aquarium staff, employing surface and underwater techniques developed for emergency responses such as oil spills and for sea otter care and research. Otter 841 is tagged with a radio transmitter that allows biologists to home in on her.
But state biologist Colleen Young said the water has been too murky for the usual underwater stealth capture technique, making 841’s capture trickier.
“It’s a very clever otter,” said Hamsa Merlet, a Santa Cruz technical writer who ventured down to West Cliff Drive to watch the capture effort. She understands why they’re doing it and doesn’t want any harm to people or Otter 841 but said “it would be really nice if she could stay wild.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com