Elkhorn Slough Snarling Otter
A sea otter bursts upward out of the gray-green water of Elkhorn Slough, mouth open and teeth bared, water streaming off its head and whiskers. A ring of white spray hangs frozen around it, and a flipper breaks the churned surface below. Moments like this one last less than a second before the animal rolls back under.
The estuary sits just inland of Monterey Bay, and it holds sea otters at densities the open coast rarely matches, with modelled numbers reaching about 19 animals per square kilometer in its eelgrass beds. Sheltered channels and eelgrass give them calm water to feed and rest in, and white sharks, the main killer of otters along the California coast, essentially stay out of these shallows. Otters returned to the slough in 1984, and the population climbed past roughly 100 animals once females moved in.
