Otter gets a bit too friendly with folks

Associated Press

SEATTLE -Wildlife officials are taking steps to return a playful young sea otter back to the wild after she spent the last several months cozying up to boaters and kayakers in Dumas Bay between Seattle and Tacoma.

Wildlife officials caught “Dumas,” the celebrity otter, Thursday on Redondo Beach near Federal Way, then took her to the Seattle Aquarium for a health check and overnight stay.

They plan to release her on the Washington coast, where hundreds of her kin thrive.

Dumas, between 2 and 3 years old and 40 and 50 pounds, started hanging out in the bay last summer and has become increasingly comfortable with people, entertaining kayakers, boaters, residents and beachgoers around the bay and, most recently, the Redondo pier and boardwalk.

She would often take a break from diving, feeding and preening and swim close to watercraft and people. Some petted her. Others fed her.

“This animal will literally crawl into somebody’s lap if they’re on the beach … to snuggle with them,” said Toni Frohof, a Bainbridge Island behavioral biologist who works for the Humane Society.

Dumas entranced onlookers, but wildlife officials say her petlike behavior put her at risk.

“If people had not fed her, if people had not habituated her, if people had let her be a wild otter, we would not have to take her out,” U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman Doug Zimmer told The News Tribune of Tacoma. “We would leave her to let her do what she wants to do.”

Zimmer said the decision to move the otter came after weeks of consultation with marine mammal biologists.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service organized the capture and relocation plan, saying it was the best to prevent injury to the otter or people.

Unlike their smaller and more numerous river otter cousins, sea otters are an uncommon sight in Washington’s inland waters.

Because sea otters are social creatures, Zimmer predicted Dumas will adapt quickly to life in one of the sea otter colonies on the Olympic Peninsula near LaPush.

“Our feeling is once she gets around other sea otters, she will probably go back to being a regular otter,” Zimmer said.

Originally, wildlife officials planned to move the otter in early spring to avoid harsh winter storms on the coast, but her recent activity prompted a change in plans, they said.

At Redondo Beach, people ripped down signs warning against interaction with the otter. Steven Jeffries, a marine mammal expert with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, said he and others watched aghast a week ago as people threw shore crabs on the beach to bring Dumas in while they snapped pictures.

Although people have fed Dumas, she has not given up actively foraging for food herself, wildlife workers said. Before her capture on Thursday, she was seen diving to the bottom for clams and crabs, and gobbling them down.

Before the otter is released, wildlife workers will attach a chartreuse marker to each flipper for future identification. A microchip identification tag also will be placed under her skin.