Mark
Hume
The Globe and Mail
Jan. 3, 2006
Vancouver
- When the Surf Sister encountered the sea otter in the big waves off
Long Beach, it was a case of mutual attraction.
But to wildlife experts in Pacific Rim National Park, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, it was also a worrying sign that the natural wariness of sea otters -- or at least one sea otter -- had begun to change.
"When I first saw him he was out in the surf, just hanging out on his back," said Tia Holmes, an instructor with Surf Sister Surf School, near Tofino. "He V-lined for me, but when he got really close I started to wonder what he was doing . . . I guess I was afraid a little bit and I was trying to splash and get him away from me." Sea otters are larger, furrier versions of North American river otters, to which they are related. They grow to about four metres in length, weigh up to 29 kilograms, have sharp teeth and powerful jaws.
Once plentiful on the West Coast, sea otters were hunted to near extinction in the 1800s because of their rich fur coats. Now listed as threatened, they have been making a comeback in some areas, but there was no record of any in the big surf off Long Beach before one turned up last summer.
Ms. Holmes (who said the otter looked just like the dancing gopher in the 1980 Chevy Chase comedy, Caddyshack ) had seen sea otters before in aquariums, but never one in the wild. After she scared it away she wondered whether she'd done the right thing.
"I figured that was my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make friends with a sea otter and I'd just blown it." But moments later the otter returned, his head bobbing in the surf, and this time Ms. Holmes said she just tried to stay calm, letting the otter approach as she clung to her board.
"He came right up and started to climb on the board . . . he was doing loops through my leash . . . when he got too high up on the board I just kind of gently pushed him back. He had his arms around my arm at one point and he nibbled at me . . . I could feel his teeth on my bare hand. He definitely wasn't trying to bite me. It was gentle nibbling . . .it was totally the coolest thing that ever happened." Ms. Holmes said the otter disappeared, then returned to play several times over the course of two hours. Then it caught a wave and surfed off.
"I caught the wave right after it." Ms. Holmes said the otter surfed lying on its belly, and it was just under the surface, rather than riding on top like a board or bodysurfer would.
That encounter happened in the summer and she hasn't seen the otter since, but she's heard of other surfers who have. "I heard it was down in Cox Bay," she said. "I keep looking for him." Another surfer, who declined to be named, had a less-amicable encounter, saying he was bitten by the otter. "It just did it right out of the blue," said the employee of Live To Surf, a shop in Tofino.
But Ms. Holmes said
she didn't think the otter would bite anyone unless it was startled.
That view is shared by Bob Hansen, a Parks Canada wildlife specialist
who, starting last summer, tracked a growing number of encounters between
people and the otter, and who soon began to worry about where things were
headed.
"It is highly unusual behaviour," Mr. Hansen said, describing how the otter was seen frolicking among the surfers as they lined up, waiting to catch waves.
Mr. Hansen said the animal has climbed on surfboards, bodyboards and air mattresses. And it has bitten several surfers.
"We had one case where the otter was nibbling or biting gently on the nose of a surfboard . . . the surfer tried to wave it away and the otter bit her arm twice," he said.
Another surfer reported
getting bitten on the ankle.
Mr. Hansen, who's more accustomed to dealing with problem bears and trying
to keep campers from feeding wildlife, said a search of literature found
only a handful of cases where the usually timid sea otters have interacted
with people in the wild.
In all those cases, he said, the otters had been raised in captivity and released. The Long Beach otter, however, apparently came from Clayoquot Sound, a wilderness area just north of the park, where a small population of the endangered species lives.
Mr. Hansen said he has been unable to find anything to suggest the otter was raised or fed by humans. "We came up with a blank on that end of things," he said.
The surfing otter,
it seems, just took a liking to people.
"The impression of the people [who encountered the otter] was that
it was playful, not aggressive," Mr. Hansen said.
He grew concerned, however, because when wild animals and humans come
into close contact, it raises the chances that one or the other could
get hurt.
A problem bear in a park would be either trapped live and moved to a different location, or "hazed" by rangers who would harass it with noisemakers, to persuade it to stay away from people.
But Mr. Hansen said sea otters are a special case because of their threatened status, under the Species At Risk Act, and his options are limited.
In a bid to adjust the otter's behaviour and cut down on the close encounters, Parks Canada officials earlier this year started asking surfers to come to the beach whenever they saw the otter.
"We were trying to break the reward cycle," Mr. Hansen said. "We were asking the surfers to leave the water and give the animal as much space as possible. We thought if we could take that reward [of playing with people] away, it might resolve the problem." In the end, however, it was the weather that brought an end to the curious otter-surfer relationship.
Mr. Hansen said winter storms have reduced the number of people surfing in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and the otter hasn't been seen for some time.
But he wouldn't be
surprised if it came back to Long Beach next summer when the surfers return.
"I really don't know what to expect. This seems to be quite an unusual
individual."
Please report all interactions to Park Wardens or other park staff
at 726-8035. Reporting interactions does not mean you will be
fined or that water activities will be temporarily prohibited. Reporting
allows researchers to understand the behaviours of people and the otter
and could actually contribute to implementing a successful strategy to
prevent these situations in the future.
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