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It started with an adorable viral video: a sea otter commandeering a surfboard and then proceeding to bite chunks out of it. The otter was identified (from a tag on her hind foot) as Otter 841, who was born in captivity before being released into the wild. Once the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife determined that her behavior was a danger to both herself and people, attempts were made to capture Otter 841 – but as of last Friday, she was still evading capture.
Otter 841 has spawned a variety of social media memes and a lot of headlines (including my favorite from the New York Times, “She Steals Surfboards By the Seashore”). She has a loyal fan base and appears on t-shirts and mugs proclaiming, “Keep 841 Free!” Fans stand on the bluff tops with binoculars, hoping to catch a glimpse of Otter 841 floating on her back, chomping on a clam or sea urchin, if not stealing another surfboard.
But the situation is no laughing matter. If 841 ingests the styrofoam bits she bites off surfboards, she could suffer a potentially fatal intestinal blockage. If she decides to take a bite out of a human surfer instead of just their surfboard, it could cause serious injury – sea otters, who use their jaws to crush clams, can inflict a lot of damage despite being smaller than a human and looking cute and furry.
Why is Otter 841 behaving so unusually, and what does her story tell us about human-wildlife interactions?
Otter 841 is a southern sea otter, sometimes called a California sea otter. This species ranges from San Mateo County in the north to near Santa Barbara County in the south. They are about four feet long and live in kelp forests and marine estuaries, feeding on sea urchins, crabs, and shellfish.
Historically, hundreds of thousands of sea otters lived in the waters along the California coast, but they were hunted to near extinction for their fur. Hunting of sea otters was not banned until 1910 when only a few dozen southern sea otters remained. Their population has since grown to around 3,000, but they are still considered endangered, partly because their habitat is almost entirely in areas frequented by human activity, which threatens their survival.
Most otters, like other wild animals, avoid interactions with humans. Otter 841’s behavior is unusual. According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, 841’s mother was also kept in captivity for a while, and when she was released into the wild, she also began approaching people on kayaks and boats. She was recaptured and gave birth to 841 while in captivity. Although care was taken to prevent 841 from becoming habituated to humans the way her mother had been, it’s possible that 841, like her mother, has learned to associate humans with food and positive interactions.
The saga of 841 has raised some interesting questions: how do we find the right balance when it comes to human-wildlife interactions?
It could be argued that 841 is in her own habitat, and if she’s become too aggressive for humans to be in the ocean when she’s around safely, it’s up to the humans to retreat. Especially if her behavior is a result of human activity in the first place – either her experiences in captivity or people feeding her once she was returned to the wild – it’s hard to view her ultimate return to captivity as a good outcome for her. But are humans ready to give up our desire to control our environment and make it as safe as possible for our own species to give a little more control over to other species, no matter how cute and cuddly-looking?
For now, it looks like Otter 841 is destined to be returned to captivity – if wildlife officials can manage to capture her. So far, attempts to entice her with a decoy surfboard and to herd her into a net have all failed. It remains to be seen whether Otter 841 will be successfully captured or whether humans will have to give up and admit to being outsmarted by an otter.
