She Steals Surfboards by the Seashore. She’s a Sea Otter
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Though it’s also possible I’ve watched too much Octonauts with my kids.
(Explanation for non-surf adjacent folks: kook is a “n00b” and Wavestorm is a brand of foam boards that you used to be able to buy at Costco for $99 or whatever. Forget the fact that they are actually quite capable boards and many really good surfers will paddle out on them, it became a symbol of good surfers having a bad day dodging people who can’t surf. Note: I am most definitely a kook / horrible surfer who doesn’t anymore, but never actually owned a Wavestorm)
I still own my Wavestorm.
It’s just always fun.
(possibly geo restricted to AU) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAzI13tT0Gk
(just the event) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOHULsrvtTE
(san diego seal) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz2M01_9jVk
but mostly they just like to mix in with the surfers and do their own thing:
referring to the otter throughout the article as "841" made me imagine they were a science experiment
or a retired hit-otter
it's a pretty cool series of digits, said out loud
That's pretty gross. I'm sure there are ways around that, especially for an endangered species.
Except house cats, of course. Somehow we've bred them to attack us with impunity.
I startled a cat I had when it was sitting in the window getting worked up about a cat outside and it turned on me with all it's murderous power, clawing my shins pretty bad.
I picked it up and put it in the basement.
There is a recent popular book on it, Fuzz: When Animals Break the Law, by Mary Roach. She goes into the challenges facing human animal interaction. There's a lot to it, much of it unfortunately bad for the animals.
For example, what all if those notoriously-non-reproducing zoo pandas just... didn't get the right bad-influences when they were growing up? Some zoos have even attempted to use panda-porn to address the issue.
https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/ultralights-are...
An Immense World by Ed Yong about sense and sense processing of living things convinces me there is a lot we human's misapprehend or uncomprehend about the world.
https://www.amazon.com/Immense-World-Animal-Senses-Reveal/dp...
Our Umwelt is still limited; it just doesn’t feel that way. To us, it feels all-encompassing. It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares.
I wonder sometimes if there are certain instinctual behaviors "unlocked" in some way. I have a cat raised from infancy without other cats (an unsanctioned rescue that I eye-dropper fed and wet wiped to the point of self-sufficiency); she never purred in my presence for 6 years, but seems to have learned purring from an adult cat temporarily introduced into our home for a few months. That other cat is gone, but now my cat purrs frequently.
Dogs do similar - they learn behaviors from all influences, and behaviors learned from other dogs (and other animals) seem to be more "sticky" than treat/avoidance training strategies.
The current elder lady learned how to behave from the elder gentleman who died six years ago.
He was very well behaved, slightly deaf and blind so didn’t bark at door bells and other dogs barking etc and had a lovely calm but playful nature.
He raised the rescue puppy we got. She in turn has raised the other two rescues we ended up with.
We now have another dog who is 16 and with us for essentially extended hospice and he was raised ‘outside of the culture’ and it’s obvious!
Even now the other dogs correct him and he is mildly conforming but mostly very stubborn and well, an old man!
"Some doe yoke them together... ye shal likewise take good heede that one oxe touch not another with their hornes, so within two or three dayes that yee see them waxe more tame... to frame a young oxe to the plough or carte, yée shall matche him best with an olde oxe that is tame, very strong and gentle, which will holde the young oxe backe if he be too hastie, or plucke him forward, if he be too slowe, or if ye will ye may make a yoke for three oxen, and put the young oxe in the middes, and by that meanes ye shall make the most hardiest oxe to be tame, and refuse no labour at the length. For the young oxe (being neuer so stubborne) in remaining betweene the two olde oxen, they will if he be too flacke, constrayne him to drawe, or if he would shoote forwarde, they will holde him backe and stay him, or if he would draw backe, they will holde him forwarde. Also if he would lye downe, the other wil hold him vp. Thus by pollicie he may be let of his stubborne frowardnes. Also yoke him to wilde bullockes that haue not laboured before, and so let them gee yoked lose together for two or three daies, and so they will waxe tame. And a little chastening after willmake him endure to labour wel..."
Link to the book's text[1] if you would like to read it in full. For a book which predates copyright it took me far too long to find an openly accessible version!
Similarly, horses have traditionally been broken into harness by having at first the foal run alongside the vehicle, which is pulled by older horses (I have heard that the foal's mother is ideal). When the horse is old enough, it can be harnessed itself, again next to experienced draught horses. Essentially this is exploiting the animals' instinct to follow the example of their elders. I think it sounds like a rather humane method of horse training, but I don't think it's as common as other methods these days.
[1]: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A07176.0001.001/1:1?rgn=di...
Some animals have this way of doing things over and over for a very long time, for many days.
It's not cute at day 155.
Wouldn't this problem sort itself out if a few kayakers gave the otter some harmless smacks with their paddles to instill a little fear?
The pup was raised by her mother until she was weaned, then moved to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. To bolster her chances for success upon release, 841’s caretakers took measures to prevent the otter from forming positive associations with humans, including wearing masks and ponchos that obscured their appearance when they were around her.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2021.081...
"Nearly all domestic animals have been shown to have smaller brains than their wild counterparts [1–7]. Those that are most important to humans, mostly for consumption or companionship, display the greatest amount of reduction. These include pigs (approx. 34%) [8] and sheep (approx. 24%) [2], and dogs (approx. 29%) [3] and cats (approx. 24%) [3], whose brains reduce more than twice as much as those of other domestics"
"Bullfighting cattle, which are bred for fighting and aggressive temperament, have much larger brains than dairy breeds, which are intensively selected for docility."
So if you are aggressive and violent, you have a bigger brain, but does brain size correlate to intelligent? Maybe the recent musk v zuck is an indication of throwing off those social constraints.
Either way, the state stating they have to kill the otter would mean this is a smart otter not fearful of predators like humans. Interesting that hormones are also cited for the increased aggression, is the oestrogen choline pathways giving the otter ideas?
As if the whole captivity experience isn't inextricably colored by those silly humans running the show and all their associated machinations. Ponchos? seriously?
I bet that the otter will not touch the black and white ones.
But it might not be so determined to steal them from otherss...