US Wildlife officials on Thursday were trying to capture a wayward sea otter that has been wrestling surfboards away from surfers and aggressively approaching kayakers off the coast of Santa Cruz, California.
The five-year-old female otter has shown aggression toward people for several weeks and poses a public safety risk, the US Fish and Wildlife Service said in a statement.
Video and photographs shared on social media show the marine mammal getting on top of surfboards — on at least one occasion biting and tearing chunks off a board — and aggressively approaching surfers.
Photo: Hefti Brunold / TMX / Reuters
A team of wildlife experts with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Monterey Bay Aquarium were working to capture and put the animal in a new home, the service said.
“While there have been no confirmed reports of injury, due to the highly unusual behavior of this otter, kayakers, surfers and others recreating in the area should not approach the otter or encourage the otter’s interactions,” it said.
Federal wildlife officials said that the otter’s behavior is highly unusual and the exact cause is unknown.
“Aggressive behavior in female southern sea otters may be associated with hormonal surges or due to being fed by humans,” federal officials said.
The animal, which wildlife officials named sea otter 841, was born in captivity and released into the wild in June 2020.
She is tagged with her number and has a radio transmitter that officials are monitoring to find and capture her, wildlife officials said.
They said it is not the first time the otter has shown aggressiveness toward humans.
The sea otter was observed approaching people in late 2021.
In May last year, she was spotted with a pup in the Santa Cruz area and four months later exhibited similar aggressive behavior.
In September, a team of California wildlife officials and Monterey Bay Aquarium staff hazed sea otter 841 by yelling loudly at her and using a paddle to beat the water in an effort to create a negative association with people, said Kevin Connor, a spokesperson with the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
“Ultimately, that effort was not successful and as we can see, the interactions with people continued and escalated and now we’ve got an otter 841 that is very bold,” Connor said. “We need the animal to listen to its natural survival instinct and have a healthy fear of people so it won’t approach them.”
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