One has to think that any creatures big enough to be chewy and paddling around in the oceans any time in the last 150 million years ago have gotten the occasional painful surprise of a shark’s nip, or worse. But the sea otters of California, the San Jose Mercury-News‘s Paul Rogers reported a week ago, are being attacked by sharks at a rate starkly higher in recent years, many if not most dying of their wounds. His story prompted wider reporting in other media.
One authority said told Rogers that such attacks were known, but now have risen so high they are the primary obstacle to further growth in sea otter population. Sea otters don’t carry much fat on their bodies, relying on thick fur for warmth. Rogers reports that the attacks are best documented by the number of dead otters found washed up, but not eaten, as though sharks take one bite, realize that’s no seal, and move on. Some of the dead otters carry characteristic individual tooth marks and the half-moon pattern of shark dentition – sometimes an actual tooth, usually of great white sharks.
Not so long ago several stories reported that orcas in Alaska have developed a taste for sea otters that had not been noticed before. A shortage of seals and sea lions was a factor that researchers suggested. Rogers reports that off California, it could be that GROWING numbers and range of sea lions and elephants seals may have led sharks to go after marine mammals with growing vigor – and that in their exuberant naivete the sharks haven’t learned the sea otters are not such good eating.
Other sea lion and shark stories:
- SF Bay – Jesse Garnier: Big Mean Sharks Attacking Poor Fuzzy Otters ; Rewrite straight off Rogers’s piece (with credit), but Garnier heaps on the googly prose for the otters, calling them wubby, friendly-looking things. Looking is the operative term. These creatures are cute enough but they are ornery, even nasty little creatures by nature.
- NBC San Diego: Sharks Take Bite Out Of Otter Population ;
- Daily Mail (UK) Otter luck: Sea otter populations dwindling dramatically and great white sharks may be to blame ; Another rewrite, and also credited to Mercury News.
– Charlie Petit
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