From the Los Angeles Times:
“Since mid-June, an otter — which remains nameless — has been attacking and terrorizing surfers off the Santa Cruz coastline — in at least one case, stealing a board.
In recent days, the attacks have grown increasingly aggressive.”
A five-year-old sea otter and mother of two (one deceased) has been chewing on surfboards of late, and in at least one case has been accused of lunging at a surfer. Fair play, in my book. You know any Santa Cruz surfer reaching out to the Los Angeles Times is not a traditional surf bro but rather a tech worker going through a midlife crisis, so if I had to guess, at least one of the people “attacked” has The land on which I live and work is the unceded territory of the Awaswas-speaking Uypi Tribe written in their email signature. They think they can just go into the otter’s unceded territory and do whatever they want? I get it, human territory is different from otter territory, but come on, guys. The sea otters were there first, and they’re way cuter than you are.
We’ll get to the orca alliance question in a minute, but the article also mentions that this otter is the child of an otter who was captured in 2018 for approaching kayaks in Monterey Bay. The suspicion there was that the otter had been fed by prior kayakers and was hoping for more, like how your dog might search for chicken bones next to the same trash can where they once managed to get a wing almost all the way down their throat before you realized they were going to choke and reached down there and yanked it out (what a day that was for your dog). Anyway, when they brought the Monterey Bay otter in for questioning, they found that she was pregnant, and who’s the pup? Already said that. It’s the Santa Cruz Surfboard Chomper.
The Santa Cruz Surfboard Chomper was raised in imprisonment, and the aquarium in question says it makes sure pups have little interaction with people, so they don’t think the Chomper is especially comfortable with humankind. The implication is that there could be something genetic at play, but a very cool possibility they did not mention and maybe I’m an idiot but they’re the ones imprisoning otters is that the Monterey Bay Kayak Friend told the Santa Cruz Surfboard Chomper that people floating in or on inanimate objects sometimes have food, similarly to how researchers think the orcas messing with boats by Gibraltar maybe told one another what and why and how to do the messing. Basically, what I’m rooting for here is that sea otters are smarter than they’ve been given credit for being.
Now.
The alliance question.
It’s noteworthy that the orcas are attacking yachts and the sea otters are attacking surfers. One interpretation here is that orcas have been watching MSNBC and sea otters have been watching Fox News. If this is the case, humanity doesn’t have to worry about an alliance, but it does have to worry about a very cute and therefore terribly sad war breaking out between orcas and otters. Another concern? How to grab the ocean’s electoral votes, since it’s evidently our territory, given that the plan with the Santa Cruz Surfboard Chomper is to capture her this week (no word on whether they’ll also go after her child).
What we really need to happen here is for someone in the greater Santa Cruz area—could be a human, could be an orca, could be an otter, I really don’t care what species but somebody has to do this—to help get the Chomper into hiding. Get the tag off the toes. Get the otter to a safe house. And give that girl all the surfboards, so she can chew to her heart’s content. We’re Team Otter, folks. Despicable that the LA Times only asked for comment from the surfer.
