Weasels Afloat
People who know such things have assured me that few tourists read these columns. Good. That makes it possible to discuss here some matters better kept private among Alaskans--matters such as the nasty side of sea otters.
We all appreciate that sea otters are right up there with giant pandas for pure critter appeal. It wouldn't do for our visitors to think these bewhiskered, back-floating charmers are anything but delightful. Granted, shore-dwelling folks from Ketchikan to Akutan may sometimes make rude remarks at frolicking otters. If caught by an alert visitor, these folks can simply explain that otters consume quantities of things that people also would like to eat, such as crabs, shrimp, clams, and suchlike. A little hostility is understandable, because otters are both efficient hunters and prodigious eaters. To keep warm in the cold waters where they live, the otters need more than their splendid pelts; they also need to burn calories galore.
But no matter how annoyed they may feel, Alaskans should explain no further. For example, don't tell visitors about the recent study of the behavior of sea otters in Monterey Bay. Since 1985, Marianne Riedman of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Jim Estes of the University of California at Santa Cruz have kept telescopes trained out to sea, observing and recording the behavior of 60 tagged otters.
Let's just say that if it were made into a movie, their research results would get an X rating for sex and violence--sometimes combined. In the throes of passion or frustration, male otters grab females by their noses, sometimes biting off chunks (and occasionally drowning their chosen sex object in the process).
Crime is a way of life among the otters. They steal food from one another incessantly. Pups snatch meals from their mothers, and males mug any female in their territory for a snack. In fact, Riedman and Estes estimated that male otters obtained about a third of their caloric intake by theft. One typical behavior, they found, was for a male otter to locate a pup, then float nearby waiting for its mother to surface and confiscate whatever food she brought the moment she came up. Sometimes males even grabbed the pups and held them hostage until the mothers handed over their food.
The more clever otters even take up breaking and entering. The scientists found one tool-using otter that had learned to pick up old bottles from the sea floor and use them to bash abalones from rocks. Others employed stones for the same purpose. One strong-jawed otter learned that little octopuses shelter in discarded aluminum beverage cans, and has developed a technique for ripping cans open with his teeth to get the animal inside.
Once they have dinner secured, the otters can use sly tricks to see that it stays secured. The researchers observed some otters wrapping kelp fronds around captured crabs to keep them from wriggling away.
Reidman and Estes think most of the otters' habits, good and bad, come from what their mammas taught them. Pups tend to prefer and seek out their mothers' favorite foods, and apparently also to use whatever tools their mothers used. (Presumably their mothers didn't teach them to drown their would-be mates, however.)
California sea otters are not Alaska sea otters; nobody claims--at least, not yet--that rough sex, thievery, kidnapping and extortion are rampant among the local populations of sea otters. The Monterey observers think their study subjects may show a range of bad behavior because they have a hard time making a living in Monterey Bay. Just as students of human behavior claim, poverty can make you forget your manners.
Still, cute and charming animals may not lead charming lives even under the best of conditions. Some experts even assert, if quietly, that giant pandas are actually surly, ill-behaved brutes.
