Looking for yet an otter pun here...
September 24, 2018 7:38 AM   Subscribe

 
You are the best person.

OTTERS!!!!!
posted by cooker girl at 7:47 AM on September 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


What cooker girl said.
posted by Melismata at 7:54 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Aw crap - just realized that the Elkhorn Slough otter cams are built in Flash. However, the Elkhorn Slough Foundation has a Youtube channel with an otter cam highlights playlist.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:55 AM on September 24, 2018


the USGS California Sea Otter Survey

Hello do the otters fill out the surveys themselves or do they have help thank you
posted by wemayfreeze at 8:05 AM on September 24, 2018 [4 favorites]


Okay, not technically sea otters, but something I'm pretty happy about: otters have been spotted coming back to a local river that used to be too polluted to support them.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 8:09 AM on September 24, 2018


Ahaha. Well done, I've been otterly defeated in the race to a Sea Otter Awareness Week post!
posted by CrystalDave at 8:10 AM on September 24, 2018


Ohmygosh I am stopping by to say how much I love kayaking at Elkhorn Slough. It's near Monterey, CA, and you can go rent kayaks there and there are sea otters all over the place. They literally film nature videos about sea otters there because there's so many of them, and they'll get pretty close to your kayak. The kayaking is pretty easy/not dangerous since you're in a fairly protected slough, you don't have to go very far, and there are so many otters for very little effort. It's often socked in with fog, so occasionally it's very eerie and quiet and just you and the sea otters. If you're going to Monterey (or wanna do a day trip from the Bay Area) I highly recommend it.
posted by soleiluna at 8:13 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Hello do the otters fill out the surveys themselves or do they have help thank you

I otterly failed to include that URL in the FPP and have used the contact form to inform the mods that they otter fix that when they have a moment.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:16 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


We kayaked at Elkhorn Slough last summer and it was great! So many otters! (And harbor seals and sea lions!)
posted by rebeccabeagle at 8:26 AM on September 24, 2018


You are the best person.

OTTERS!!!!!


Yes, mandolin conspiracy otter be proud.

Yes, I’m leaving. No need to call Security.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:31 AM on September 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


Wait, why doesn’t the list of links include that movie from a few years back, The Lives of Otters?

ow ow ow. Those handcuffs are far too tight, officer.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:33 AM on September 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


The most adorable thing I've seen in the last month, a sea otter miming, "Will you please do that one petting thing on my head?"

The degree of self awareness and the ability to communicate it, is amazing, and the need for it, is heart breaking.
posted by ecco at 9:03 AM on September 24, 2018 [3 favorites]


An obvious one...
posted by jim in austin at 9:05 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


Before everyone gets too excited about recovering sea otter populations: at least in California, it's river otters, like the very cute one seen above in ecco's link, that are making a comeback these days.

The sea otter is still endangered and the northern population decreased slightly in 2017. Climate change, habitat destruction, overfishing... It's all real, y'all, and it's all hurting the sea puppies.
posted by jesourie at 9:49 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


So many posts about Elkhorn Slough. I discovered the otters there before I heard about it from others. I had job sites in Santa Cruz and Monterey, so I drove past there on a monthly basis. After a few months I thought I saw some otters. The next month I actually stopped and watched them. I later brought my wife, and then out entire Girl Scout Troop down to see them.

My wife has been a huge sea otter fan after we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium on our first trip together almost 20 years ago. She was from Texas, so she had never seen one before and was amazed at how big they are.
posted by Badgermann at 9:50 AM on September 24, 2018


Recently heard Todd McLeish (URI Coastal Institute) talk about the decline and recovery of west coast otter populations. I have his new book, Return of the Sea Otter, haven't read it yet but the presentation was interesting with lots of very cute slides.
posted by Botanizer at 10:00 AM on September 24, 2018


Could these cams be considered an invasion of the otters' privacy? Perhaps they should hire an otterney and sue ("Right to be forgottern", and all that...).
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:22 AM on September 24, 2018 [2 favorites]


What Otter nonsense! I love it!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:03 AM on September 24, 2018


I thought otters were really cute until I saw about 15 of them clamouring for food in Cannon Hill Park in Birmingham, England. A romp of hungry otters is not cute.
posted by srboisvert at 11:09 AM on September 24, 2018


I absolutely love otters (and I am effectively an otter, just add water) but have learned that they're a lot cuter at a safe distance, especially river otters. When I was living on my friends boat and on the first day I had to go to work after moving I was delayed for a good 20 minutes by a river otter having a lunch of Dungeness crab on the dock and making an amazing mess.

No big deal, I said hello to the otter, and tried to pass by on the narrow dock. Nope. Did you know river otters can bark and growl? And rear up on their hind legs? And snarl with an impressive set of teeth right at crotch level?

And so I waited for the otter to finish eating and slide off the dock to go looking for more crabs. Apparently I'm not the only person who has been trapped out on the linear dock by one or more otters using it as a picnic bench.

ATM I'm actually waiting to see if I can get at what I believe is a river otter carcass my friends found in the basement/subfloor of their new art space. It might be a racoon, but I'm hoping it's an otter and further hoping I can recover it's skull and most of it's skeleton. I totally want/need an otter skull on my desk.
posted by loquacious at 11:24 AM on September 24, 2018 [1 favorite]


This?
posted by aqsakal at 12:29 PM on September 24, 2018


The Seattle Aquarium runs an otter cam 9-6.
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 12:55 PM on September 24, 2018


This?

C'est ça:

Twin Otters on the water.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:27 PM on September 24, 2018


Otters make me want to believe in reincarnation.
posted by homunculus at 10:24 AM on September 25, 2018


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