The most adorable pirate of all time?
Sadly, it seems the otter's knack for "boardjacking" has landed in in hot water with the po-po.
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.
The 5-year-old otter is known as Otter 841, but that's boring, so I'll be referring to her henceforth as Whiskerbeard, Terror of the Kelp Forests and Board Pirate Extraordinaire.
Whiskerbeard was raised at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, where caretakers took steps to not make her dependent on humans, but it seems she didn't get the memo and decided to become best friends with people who would feed her once she was released into the wild. She started jumping up on people's boards in 2021, but her behavior has become much more violent lately.
On Monday, Joon Lee, 40, a software engineer, was surfing at Steamer Lane, a popular surf spot in Santa Cruz, when 841 approached his board.
"I tried to paddle away but I wasn't able to get far before it bit off my leash," he said.
Mr. Lee abandoned his board and watched in horror as the otter climbed atop it and proceeded to rip chunks out of it with her powerful jaws.
"I tried to get it off by flipping the board over and pushing it away, but it was so fixated on my surfboard for whatever reason, it just kept attacking," he said.
Look at the closeup of the damage Whiskerbeard can do:
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has been unsuccessful at catching the wily otter but asks surfers to stay away if they see her. If someone is bitten, authorities would be required to put her down.
