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Who are you to be calling me aggressive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, I\u2019m the 5-year-old female otter, from Santa Cruz, about whom you\u2019ve been reading scare headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, I do sometimes approach surfers or kayakers in ways they interpret as threatening. And, on occasion, I separate surfers from their boards and exercise my right, as a Californian, to ride the waves myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But have I ever done anything truly aggressive, at least by Santa Cruz standards? It\u2019s not like I ever swiped a street parking space near the Boardwalk, or bid $200,000 over asking on a three-bedroom in Seabright<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Which is why it\u2019s downright slanderous to say, as the city of Santa Cruz has on signs<\/a> posted near the coast, that I\u2019m an \u201caggressive sea otter\u201d so dangerous that people shouldn\u2019t go in the water. And if I could hire a lawyer, I might have a case against biased human media who call me \u201cwayward\u201d or a \u201crenegade\u201d \u2014 without ever bothering to ask me for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The true aggressors in this otter\u2019s story are all too human. And I\u2019m not just talking about the paparazzi who paddle out to take my photo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of this writing, there are no confirmed cases of me hurting anyone. Still, I\u2019m being relentlessly hunted by state officials, as if I were a dangerous fugitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More for you<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, I\u2019ve bitten a few holes in some boards. But c\u2019mon! Human Californians can shoplift in Union Square and smoke meth in the Tenderloin without any real fear of imprisonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet I, for spooking a few surfers, could lose my freedom. The state\u2019s plan is to capture me (they may have succeeded by the time you read this) and relocate me to a zoo or aquarium, placing me in front of audiences with little compensation \u2014 like actors in a Netflix show<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It could get worse for me. Federal officials have publicly threatened that, if I\u2019m ever accused of doing harm to a human, I\u2019ll be euthanized\u2014without a trial before a human jury, much less a panel of my fellow marine mammals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And you thought Gov. Gavin Newsom had put a moratorium on executions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, deadly attacks on otters are human tradition. There are only around 3,000 of us southern sea otters<\/a> living off the California coast today because of mass slaughter by fur traders in previous centuries. We remain a threatened species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, don\u2019t I have every reason to bite back?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was born in captivity and returned to the wild, with a number (841) and a transmitter for monitoring. After I was reported for \u201caggressiveness\u201d two years ago, state and Monterey Bay Aquarium officials yelled loudly at me to make me afraid of people. This intervention, unsurprisingly, didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can\u2019t help it if I run a little hot. My metabolism requires that I eat one-quarter of my body weight each day in fish and crab and urchins. I have to eat even more when I\u2019m pregnant. It\u2019s also hard for me to keep warm; I don\u2019t have blubber like those media darlings, the elephant seals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s ironic that I\u2019m in trouble for confronting surfers. Because surfers, who constantly paddle right into my ecosystem, are far more aggressive than me. Santa Cruz has a long history of surfers who defend their breaks violently, and even create gangs. But I\u2019m the threat here?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To the contrary, I should be seen as an asset, even a model for Californians. I\u2019m out here breeding \u2014 two pregnancies so far that anyone knows about \u2014 while the human birth rate is dropping so fast onshore that California is losing population. My presence, and that of other sea life, is vital to the tourism that powers the Central Coast economy. I\u2019m also an environmental steward, because I eat the sea urchins that can devour kelp forests. The same state government now hunting me has considered introducing otters along the North Coast, to make those ecosystems healthier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite all we do for society, my fellow otters and I are excluded from participation in decisions in California, even as the state seeks to control me. This is primitive, and hypocritical for a state that purports to be committed to democracy and environmental justice. Efforts are underway, here and elsewhere, to create multi-species constitutions<\/a> and democratic governance for important commons spaces on this planet<\/a>, like the Amazon or the oceans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the University of Leicester politics professor Rob Garner<\/a> has written, \u201cThe interests of animals are affected \u2014 often devastatingly \u2014 by collective decisions and, therefore, they, or \u2014 more specifically\u2014their representatives, have a democratic right to have some say in the making of those decisions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I shouldn\u2019t be evading state officials. I should be helping to govern them. Because the real aggression I see in California is your anthropocentrism<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Z\u00f3calo Public Square<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Aggressive Santa Cruz Otter, as told to Joe Mathews July 20, 2023Updated: July 21, 2023 11:42 a.m. Who are you to be calling me aggressive? Yes, I\u2019m the 5-year-old female otter, from Santa Cruz, about whom you\u2019ve been reading scare headlines. Now, I do sometimes approach surfers or kayakers in ways… Continue reading \n