Longboard larceny: She steals surfboards by the seashore. She’s a sea otter

NEW YORK: For the past few summers, numerous surfers in Santa Cruz, Calif., have been victims of a crime at sea: boardjacking. The culprit is a female sea otter, who accosts the wave riders, seizing and even damaging their surfboards in the process. After a weekend in which the otter’s behavior seemed to grow more aggressive, wildlife officials in the area said on Monday they have decided to put a stop to these acts of otter larceny.

“Due to the increasing public safety risk, a team from C.D.F.W. and the Monterey Bay Aquarium trained in the capture and handling of sea otters has been deployed to attempt to capture and rehome her,” a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement. Local officials call the animal Otter 841. The 5-year-old female is well known, for both her bold behavior and her ability to hang 10. And she has a tragic back story, with officials forced to take steps that illustrate the ways human desire to get close to wild animals can cost the animals their freedom, or worse, their lives. California sea otters, also known as southern sea otters, are an endangered species found only along California’s central coast. Hundreds of thousands of these otters once roamed the state’s coastal waters, helping to keep the kelp forests healthy as they consumed sea urchins. But when colonists moved in on the West Coast, the species was hunted to near-extinction until a ban was put in place in 1911.

Today, around 3,000 remain, many in areas frequented by kayakers, surfers and paddle boarders. Despite these close quarters, interactions between sea otters and humans remain rare. The animals have an innate fear of humans and usually go to great lengths to avoid us, said Tim Tinker, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz who has spent decades studying the marine mammals. A sea otter approaching a human “isn’t normal,” he said, adding “just because it’s not normal doesn’t mean it never happens.”

Otters have been known to approach humans during hormonal surges that coincide with a pregnancy, or as a result of being fed or repeatedly approached by people. That is likely what occurred with otter 841’s mother. She was orphaned and raised in captivity. But after she was released into the wild, humans started offering her squid and she quickly became habituated. She was removed again when she started climbing aboard kayaks in search of handouts, ending up at the Marine Wildlife Veterinary Care and Research Center in Santa Cruz, where researchers quickly realized she was pregnant. It was while back in captivity that she gave birth to 841. The pup was raised by her mother until she was weaned, then moved to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

If the authorities succeed in capturing 841, she will return to the Monterey Bay Aquarium before being transferred to a different one, where she will live out her days. Her captors have their work cut out for them. Multiple attempts to capture her have been made, none successful. “She’s been quite talented at evading us,” Jessica Fujii, sea otter program manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said. Until the otter can be captured, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife is asking surfers to avoid her at all costs.