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Rare San Francisco River Otter Stumps Researchers

Jan. 3, 2013 9:00pm
Rare San Francisco River Otter Stumps Researchers

A river otter carries seaweed back to its nest Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in San Francisco. For the first time in decades, a river otter has made San Francisco its home, taking up residence in the ruins of the Sutro baths, a 19th century seaside public pool facing the Pacific Ocean. Credit: AP

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A rapt crowd followed a trail of bubbles that zipped over the surface of a seaside pond in the ruins of a 19th century bath in San Francisco.

San Francisco’s newest star – the first river otter seen in the city in decades – surfaced its whiskery head furtively, a mouth full of sea grass. The crowd oohed as large waves pounded rocks just offshore, a briny smell and chill in the air.

The otter ducked back under water and took the sea grass underneath a concrete remnant of the historic baths, where the animal was building a nest.

“We came here to see the baths and this was just a bonus,” said Eliza Durkin, who brought her son Jonathan to the site for a school project on historic places.

Beyond tourists, the otter has mystified and delighted conservationists, who are piecing together clues to figure out how he got there. The furry creature was first spotted by birdwatchers in September and has since settled into the City by the Bay.

Rare San Francisco River Otter Stumps Researchers

Spectators line the ruins of the Sutro Baths for a glimpse of a river otter Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in San Francisco. Credit: AP

Rare San Francisco River Otter Stumps Researchers

A river otter carries seaweed back to its nest Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in San Francisco. Credit: AP

Rare San Francisco River Otter Stumps Researchers

A river otter, left, eyes a bird Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, in San Francisco. Credit: AP

River otters once thrived in the San Francisco Bay area, but development, hunting and environmental pollution in the 19th and 20th centuries has taken its toll on the once thriving local population.

The critters are a living barometer of water quality – if it’s bad they cannot thrive. But new populations being seen north and east of San Francisco are giving hope to conservationists that years of environmental regulations and new technologies are making a difference.

“The fact that this otter is in San Francisco and doing so well in other regions of the Bay Area, it’s a good message that there’s hope for the watershed,” said Megan Isadore, director of outreach and education for the River Otter Ecology Project, a group that studies otter populations further north and in the bay.

The group said until now it had no evidence the creatures had returned to San Francisco, and the last sighting was nearly a half-century ago as best they can tell.

The otter is nicknamed “Sutro Sam” after the old baths, which were named after former San Francisco Mayor Adolph Sutro, who built the building which at the time was an engineering marvel.

The facility opened in 1896 on a cliff facing the Pacific Ocean, its baths fed by the salty ocean tides and a freshwater seep. They were torn down and burned in a fire in 1966, and the building’s carcass has long been a tourist draw on the city’s rugged, western shoreline.

The aquatic mammal seems to have found the mix of the environment he needs to make a home, to the delight of tourists and local nature lovers.

“They do need freshwater to drink and keep their fur clean,” Isadore said. “They are also happy in salt and brackish water – wherever there is food – and he is getting freshwater from seeps behind the baths.”

River otters can be found in other regions of the San Francisco Bay area. To the north of the Golden Gate, the researchers are tracking a group in Marin County. They have also found river otters in shore-side San Francisco Bay area communities of Alameda, Richmond and Martinez.

“Habitat destruction had an impact on the river otters,” said Dorren Gurrola, a science teacher at the Marine Mammal Center, which studies Sam’s relatives, the sea otter. “So it’s always exciting to see these animals return to their habitat.”

Young males like Sam often are the ones that travel away from groups, looking for food. If they find a new, hospitable habitat, others including females may join and create the basis of a new colony, Gurrola said.

While there is no certain reason for Sam’s appearance in San Francisco, Isadore and biologists working to unlock more clues have some leads to go on.

He could have swam across the bay’s mouth from Marin County, and scat collected from Sam will be analyzed to see if there’s a genetic link to that population. But now, Sam seems to be happy swimming around and munching on small fish, including goldfish discarded in the area.

“We’re just trying to piece things together in a logical way,” Isadore said. “River otters sometimes even stow away on boats, we just don’t know.”

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Comments (44)

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  • Centurian
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 10:54am

    Does this mean that the Army Corp of Engineers, EPA, and the Sierra Club step in a claim the area as a wildlife refuge? Just think: The City by the Bay closed off! heh

    Report this comment

    Centurian  
  • bobad
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 10:37am

    An otter that hangs out at those baths is obviously on the other team, if you know what I mean.

    Report this comment

    bobad  
  • sizzlinsexybeckster
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 10:36am

    I love you Otter! You are so overly beautiful! Please do not move the otter. Let nature take it’s course. If this is where the otter wants to live then let her be.

    Report this comment

    sizzlinsexybeckster  
  • TROONORTH
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 9:15am

    He otter move along before the S.F. wack jobs decide to ‘help’ him.

    And trust me. He ain’t no beaver. I know beavers. Up here in Canada we have a wagon load of beavers. And he ain’t no beaver.

    Report this comment

    TROONORTH  
  • djmaine
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 8:44am

    He may be the first Otter to get an EBT card and vote.

    Report this comment

    djmaine  
  • gbgreta
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 8:35am

    Add your comments

    Report this comment

    gbgreta  
  • Joyzee
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 8:04am

    Me thinks’ Fema is endangered..*

    Report this comment

    Joyzee  
  • BuggiOlleo
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 8:03am

    River Rats. Their cute, agile, and a complete nuisance. Reasoning for the New Otter Home: well, cause he liked it. Nuff said! Really, does this need a 10 million dollar grant for study. Think I’m kidding? Try Turtle Tunnels – 12 million! So, a budget finally gets cut and out of the Loony bin of grant funding comes –Otter study in San Fransisco.

    Report this comment

    BuggiOlleo  
  • country_hick
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 7:43am

    I DEMAND that the Federal Government close down 100 Square miles of land area around where this endangered creature(s) are living, make it totally off limits to any human interference or contact, shut down the sea for at least the same amount of area, and o anything else that they have to to preserve it.

    Just like they do for owls, blind spiders, little fish in canals, etc. After all if this were a Conservative area they would be doing it.

    Maybe we should get a petition going on the White House site? You know Pelosi won’t do it because she hates cute little creatures.

    Report this comment

    country_hick  
  • Jondolar
    Posted on January 4, 2013 at 3:47am

    Aw gee Wally… if we get too many creatures appearing in places environmentalists thought they’d never be seen in again, then do you think they’ll reconsider their Agenda 21 goals?

    Report this comment

    Jondolar  
  • Lotus503
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:51pm

    I wonder how you cook ‘em…

    Report this comment

    Lotus503  
  • jspec33
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:49pm

    There using logic in San Francisco? Oh to be a fly on the wall.

    Report this comment

    jspec33  
  • YallComeBack
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:40pm

    River Vermine.

    Report this comment

    YallComeBack  
  • OlefromMN
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:30pm

    An otter decides to move and set up shop outside of the perceived “norm” and the environmentalists go ape feces crazy over it. Big deal. He appears anti-social (by retreating from the other otters) and should be watched to make sure he doesn’t start purchasing little otter AKs. (last sentence intended as sarcastic)

    Man and beast have relocated to fertile lands forever. Food is the highest driver of relocation. Watch when this otter eats one of San Fran’s other cherished critters, tears will shed and cries for more regulation will be heard across their fruity plain.

    Report this comment

    OlefromMN  
  • Teaple
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:24pm

    Better shut down SF Bay to protect it

    Report this comment

    Teaple  
    • sndrman
      Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:46pm

      BEAVER TAX oops talking about otters……..i’m partial to beavers and yes i do love beavers,beavers are a lot of fun,…………i hear a lot of men in san fran don’t like BEAVERS………but anyways do not tax the BEAVERS

      Report this comment

      sndrman  
  • taintso
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:22pm

    S.F.’s first gay otter to come out, wonder how the other otters will feel when he recruits their children?

    Report this comment

    taintso  
  • banjarmon
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:04pm

    River Otters live in and build DENs …Birds raise their young in nest!!

    Report this comment

    banjarmon  
  • woodyee
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:02pm

    This just hit me – if it had been “missing” for 5 decades, where was the claim of it’s extinction?

    Since there obviously was none, why not? Because it’s not rare nor near extinction, it just hasn’t been “seen” in THIS area for a while.

    I’ve never seen Obammy in the San Gabriel area of So. Kalifornicate, and there’s only one of him, so why such a sycophantic swallowing of his bilge by the media, when this poor creature hasn’t been around in 50yrs? What does one have to do with the other?

    They’re both absent when present.

    Report this comment

    woodyee  
    • RLTW
      Posted on January 3, 2013 at 11:02pm

      If liberals don’t see something it doesn’t exist until they see it again.

      Thus the G_A_Y Otter now lives.

      Report this comment

      RLTW  
  • woodyee
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:32pm

    I just sang Heatwave’s “Always and Forever” to my wife, after dinner. Things like that probably explain why we’ve been married so long…

    or why I shouldn’t have so many beers at one sitting….

    Report this comment

    woodyee  
  • right-wing-waco
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:24pm

    To protect the Otter they should shut down the city of San Francisco and make everyone leave.

    Report this comment

    right-wing-waco  
    • woodyee
      Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:33pm

      Dang you…I just blew nature’s “lubricant” out of my nostrils because of your comment!

      Report this comment

      woodyee  
    • grimmster
      Posted on January 3, 2013 at 10:45pm

      @Waco.
      HELL NO,then the fagg bastards will want to come to Texas…..

      Report this comment

      grimmster  
    • repairsea
      Posted on January 4, 2013 at 12:40am

      Seriously, contact Boxer and get a petition going at the White House. Shut down SF to save the otter.

      Report this comment

      repairsea  
  • billo
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:23pm

    I think thousands should flock to see “Sam”, so that the poor thing will get scared back to wherever it came from thus avoiding San Francisco. Maybe the little guy is “gay”! After all…it’s hanging around a San Francisco bath house! Mystery solved!

    Report this comment

    billo  
    • GEW
      Posted on January 4, 2013 at 8:52am

      Why is it building a nest/den? If there is only one, how can this be?
      There has to be at least 2 more. Looks like litlle guys getting ready
      for something after all he’s expanding his place…just amazing,all those
      people standing around watching him..strange.

      Report this comment

      GEW  
  • TJexcite
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:17pm

    Life finds a way.

    Report this comment

    TJexcite  
  • Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:12pm

    The Otter is stumping the Scientist because it seems to work, won’t take welfare, won’t get an abortion, doesn’t do drugs, and voted for Romney, but lives in San Fran? They simply don’t get it, but they do have plans to capture it and perform several anal probes to get it to change it’s mind. It worked on Joe Scarborough.

    Report this comment

    Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra  
  • ProgressiveDeist267
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:11pm

    That is a mystery! Hopefully the new environment is perfect for otters. As Charles Darwin quoted: It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
    Charles Darwin

    Report this comment

    ProgressiveDeist267  
  • searching for the Truth
    Posted on January 3, 2013 at 9:05pm

    Someone please get a hand puppet and stick it up out of the water for these guy’s ever now and then !

    Report this comment

    searching for the Truth  
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