The final post in this series of photographs of southern sea otters taken at Moss Landing California.
Mammal
31
Aug 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–10
27
Jul 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–09
Another post in this series of photographs of southern sea otters taken at Moss Landing, California.
20
Jul 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–08
Another “portrait” of a southern sea otter at the harbor near Moss Landing State Beach.
13
Jul 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–Baby Harbor Seal
This is the baby Harbor Seal attacked by a southern sea otter described in the previous post. It had become separated from the other seals and approached a female otter protective of its pup. The encounter lasted only a second or two.
6
Jul 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–07
Otters are popular because they are playful and appear to be cuddly and friendly. However, they are wild animals and their teeth are very sharp. I witnessed a protective female with a young pup attack an approaching baby harbor seal. The young seal was badly injured.
15
Jun 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–06
Otters are one of the few animals that use tools. They often use rocks to break open prey such as crabs or clams. I watched this otter repeatedly break open shells on rocks in shallow water along Jetty Road.
8
Jun 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–05
Otters eat clams, mussels, sea urchins, abalone, oysters, squid, crab and other small marine species. They need to eat 25 to 30% of their body weight in food each day! If you watch them for any length of time, you see they are always in motion if they aren’t sleeping.
4
May 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–04
The sea otters were hunted nearly to extinction by the 1900s. By the time the International Fur Seal Treaty banned hunting of fur seals and sea otters in 1911, there were less than 2000 otters left. The Endangered Species Act listed southern sea otters as “threatened” in 1977. The Moss Landing harbor area and the adjacent Elkhorn Slough host about 5% of California’s population of southern sea otters.
27
Apr 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–03
One or two “rafts” of otters can be seen nearly every day near a cove at the end of Jetty Road at the sand dunes of Moss landing State Beach. A “raft” is a group of otters floating side-by-side. They often sleep wrapped in stands of kelp so they won’t drift too far from one another. These photographs, however, were taken at the harbor close to the intersection of Jetty Road and Highway 1.
20
Apr 15
Moss Landing Southern Sea Otters–02
All of these photographs of otters were taken with an old 500 mm f/8 mirror reflex lens. It is a manual focus lens and very hard to control. The depth of field is narrow and I can only hold it steady with a tripod. The otters are often rolling or diving so it is rare to get a shot in focus. Sometimes, though, when they are feeding, a successful shot happens.