A rogue sea otter menacing surfers in Santa Cruz is proving elusive as marine-wildlife experts seek to apprehend it before it bites more than someone’s surfboard.
Five-year-old Otter 841 has repeatedly approached surfers and kayakers in and around world-renowned surf spot Steamer Lane, the wildlife service said. The animal has been filmed stealing and riding on surfboards.
“Standard methods for capturing healthy wild sea otters have been unusable or ineffective so far,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday. “Sea otters are naturally wary of people, but this individual has been aggressively approaching people,” the wildlife service said.”
While notoriously fuzzy and cute, an aggressive sea otter poses a significant danger to humans.
“They bite through shellfish, they bite through clams,” said Kevin Connor, spokesperson for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, whose marine mammal experts are working with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on the otter’s capture. “I would never want to be bitten by any wild animal — but an otter would be close to the top of the list.”
Otter 841 has become a world-wide celebrity since Santa Cruz photographer Mark Woodward first captured images of it behaving badly at The Lane on June 18, stealing a blue surfboard and catching a wave. It continued to engage in surf-piracy, leaving at least one board with bite marks.
The escalating aggression and potential to injure people led federal and state wildlife officials to dispatch a capture team starting July 2. Even though the otter was born in captivity and bears a radio transmitter, it is in its element, and conditions in that element have not been favorable for the pursuers.
“The usual method for safely capturing healthy, wild sea otters is a clandestine underwater approach,” said Colleen Young, a sea otter biologist with the state fish and wildlife department. “However, the water has generally been too murky for us to see the animal from below. We are adapting other capture methods to this situation but must ensure the safety of both the sea otter and the people attempting capture, which has limited our options and opportunities.”
The federal wildlife service, in explaining Otter 841’s elusiveness, cited its “wariness of nets from previous capture attempts” along with its varying behavioral patterns.
The creature has significant advantages over its would-be captors, including “mastery of the ocean,” Connor noted. “You’re looking for one specific animal in the ocean, and that animal is specifically adapted to swim faster, know where to hide, to see underwater. Otters are agile little balls of muscle. And they’re smart, they’re really intelligent.”
Otter 841 has a known range from Santa Cruz north about 20 miles to Año Nuevo State Park. Female sea otters can weigh up to 50 pounds.
“Although this otter was born in an animal care facility, she was raised by her mother with minimal human contact,” said Jess Fujii, Sea Otter Program manager for the aquarium. “This otter behaved like a typical otter in the wild for over a year before interactions with people began.”
The otter’s history of atypical fearlessness around people goes back at least since the late summer of 2021, officials said. In September, staff from the aquarium and state fish and wildlife department temporarily stopped the behavior after “hazing” the animal, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
Hazing can involve slapping a paddle on the water, making loud noises, “screaming and yelling at the otter” or in some cases deploying citronella spray, the aquarium’s Connor said. “The intent is to break a positive association the otter has with people and get it to embrace natural fear,” he said. “You want to create an experience that is unpleasant but un-harmful. You want them to be like, ‘Man, people suck.’”
Otter 841 appeared to have chilled out over the winter but was photographed getting back to its previous tricks earlier this month.
“While the exact cause for this sea otter’s behavior is unknown, aggressive behavior in female southern sea otters may be associated with hormonal surges or due to being fed by humans,” the aquarium’s Fujii said.
A positive association usually comes from being fed, Connor said. Under the Marine Mammal Act, that’s illegal. Otter 841’s fearlessness of humans is “rare but not unheard of, and that speaks to the fact that most otters retain that natural fear of humans,” he said.
The otter was born in captivity at a UC Santa Cruz research center, and was raised by its mother at the aquarium until being released. When otters are destined for a return to the wild, staff take measures to avoid animal-to-human bonding, such as wearing black ponchos and welders’ masks, and not speaking, so the animal does not know it is people looking after them, Connor said.
The federal wildlife service said it could take days or weeks to catch the Otter 841, given “logistical considerations, the sea otter’s behavior, and shifting environmental conditions.”
If and when Otter 841 is nabbed, it will be taken to the aquarium for a health assessment, then to an appropriate zoo or aquarium, officials said. It will be a life sentence — as its behavior makes it “unreleasable” — but not a death sentence, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.