A renegade sea otter is terrorizing California surfers: ‘It’s a little scary’

SANTA CRUZ It was the fourth time Joon Lees surfed on Sunday.

The 40-year-old Apple software engineer from San Jose had rented a board and headed south to Santa Cruz to catch some waves off the coast of the iconic surf city.

But about 90 minutes into his session, he was attacked by a sea otter.

Since mid-June, an unnamed otter has attacked and terrorized surfers off the coast of Santa Cruz in at least one instance, stealing a board.

In recent days, the attacks have become increasingly aggressive.

Lee said he surfed next to an otter most of the time he was there on Steamer Lane off Cowell Beach. He was cool and friendly, and all of us surfers were like, Oh, he’s so cute, he said.

But then another otter appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and swam towards another surfer.

At first we were like, look how cute? But then he bit into the board and broke off a piece, and we said to each other. What is going on? he said.

It was then that she turned her eyes on Lee and walked towards him.

I was scared. I was trying to swim away, but before I could get far, it bit my leash, she said, describing the cord surfers wear around their ankle that connects them to their board. So I panicked.

She said the otter jumped on her board and started biting her. She tried to turn the board over, but the otter quickly got back on the saddle and started lunging at him.

He was eventually able to make it to shore, but not before becoming utterly terrified and drained from exhaustion.

According to Mark Woodward, a photographer and social media influencer who calls himself @NativeSantaCruz on Twitter, Instagram and Threads, the attack isn’t isolated. Woodward said he has documented a number of similar incidents and believes their ferocity has increased since mid-June.

He said he heard a report last year of an otter grabbing a surfboard off the coast, but it wasn’t until June 19 that he saw it for himself and the theft spree really began.

Woodward was standing on the cliff near a lighthouse, photographing a Black Santa surfing event off Cowell Beach, when he saw a heavy sea otter lunge at a surfboard, snatch it from the startled surfer, then catch some solo waves .

An adult sea otter can weigh 30 to 100 pounds and reach 5 feet in length.

Since then, Woodward has attended three more fights and heard a lot more about them. He said the otter, which can be identified by the blue tag on the webbing between its left toes, seems to be getting more and more aggressive.

Woodward filmed Lee’s encounter while standing on a bluff high above the scene. It was unnerving to watch, as otters have powerful jaws that can crack the shells of crabs, mussels, sea urchins, and other food sources.

It’s a little scary. They look so cute and tame, but these animals are predators. Their bite is as strong as a wolverine, Woodward said.

While it is not true that an otter has a stronger bite than a wolverine, it is much stronger than a human’s bite. The force of an otters bite has been estimated at 615 pounds per square inch, while a wolverine can reach 1,720 pounds per square inch. The average bite force of a person is about 162 pounds per square inch.

In the wake of mounting incidents that are first viewed with amusement, federal and state wildlife officials have decided they must remove the young otter from the wild, before it does harm to anyone or itself.

A city worker posted signs Tuesday morning along West Cliff Drive warns surfers of an aggressive sea otter in the area and to enter the water at your own risk.

I’d just start by saying this is very unusual and rare, said Jessica Fujii, scientific and operations leader of the Sea Otter program at Monterey Bay Aquariums. I would not characterize this as a common behavior for sea otters. We’ve seen similar cases, you know, over the last few decades… but the persistence and pattern of this particular otter is quite unique.

Five years ago, there was an otter in Monterey Bay that approached the kayaks. That otter, Fujii said, had likely been illegally fed by people, a common trigger for this kind of aggressive behavior.

Sadly, that otter had to be trapped.

But here’s where things get a little weird: When the researchers took her for observation, they realized she was pregnant. She gave birth. And that pup they tagged and have been following since they released her into the wild is now the surfboard thief.

Because the cub was raised in captivity, he couldn’t have learned the behavior from his mother, Fujii said. Her aggressive behavior is also unlikely to be the result of habituation to humans during her brief captivity.

Fujii said the aquarium and other marine mammal partner organizations work hard to make sure the juveniles raised in their facilities have little interaction with people. And, she said, the otter has only recently started exhibiting this behavior; for two years she did no such thing.

Had she been fed too?

Fujii said they have been able to trace her since she was released. And as far as they know, there’s no indication that the otter was interacting with anyone other than those during these recent surfing events.

Instead, like other otters, it spends most of its time feeding, floating, swimming, and dozing on the surface of kelp forests along the Santa Cruz coast. She is also known to travel a bit; Fujii and her colleagues followed her a few times as she swam a little north of the bay.

She also gave birth twice. The first offspring survived; the second, born this spring, no.

Fujii said female otters gestate for about six months and then hold their young for another six months before weaning them.

It’s possible the otter is pregnant again, he said. Otter mothers often go into estrus immediately if they lose a pup. However, until they take her for observation, they won’t know.

Fujii said that otters require a lot of food energy to keep warm and fit in the cold waters of the Pacific, and that these demands double for mother otters who must feed their unborn pups and thus provide enough rich, fatty and nutrient to feed their young.

On Monday evening, a Times reporter spotted the lollipop otter along the coast between the lighthouse and the nearby surfer statue. He was eating a crab which he held in his front legs while he floated on his back. A seagull followed close behind.

He paid no attention to the two or three surfers waiting for a wave that never really came; the sea off Lighthouse Point was calm and the wind mild.

Fujii said there are about 3,000 sea otters living off the California coast. The species, which nearly became extinct due to mass slaughter by fur traders in the 1700s and 1800s, has rebounded, although it is still considered threatened by federal standards.

Fujii said his state and federal partners hope to catch the otter this week.

Due to the growing risk to public safety, a team from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Monterey Bay Aquarium trained in the capture and management of sea otters has been deployed to attempt to capture and relocate them, Ashley McConnell, spokeswoman for US Fish and Wildlife Service, it said in a statement.

McConnell said that although the hazing techniques had initially worked with the otter, they were only temporarily effective.

Where it will ultimately go is not yet clear, Fujii said. But her first stop will be the aquarium, where she will be checked and monitored for a while.

For his part, Lee said he’s unlikely to surf again and now has a mild case of lutraphobia (fear of otters).

He said he started surfing while his wife and two sons, ages 3 and 4, were in South Korea for a month. But Sunday’s attack was so unnerving that he no longer enjoys it.