How Many Baby Seals Does It Take to Kill a Person

People love otters. Hell, Vox.com in one case employed its own full-time otter enthusiast. And I guess I go the entreatment. They hold each others's hands. They juggle rocks. Babe ones raised in captivity squeak when introduced to h2o for the first time. Legend has it they save human lives on occasion:

But there comes a bespeak at which rational people have to put adorable hijinks aside and recognize otters for what they are: disease-ridden, murderous, necrophilic aqua-weasels whose treachery knows few bounds. They are not "wonderful animals," as Ms. Deschanel would accept you believe. They're merciless hellspawn who apply their intellects for not bad evil. Hither's what y'all need to know virtually these terrible animals, and why you should fearfulness and hate them.

1) What is an otter?

A river otter at the Sedgwick Canton Zoo in Wichita, Kansas, gets some snow on his face.

Jaime Green/Wichita Eagle/MCT via Getty Images

Otters are mammals of the subfamily Lutrinae, one of two subfamilies contained within the family Mustelidae. The other, Mustelinae, includes badgers, weasels, and ferrets, among other similar mammals. Lutrinae contains seven genuses and 12 unlike species, spanning every continent save Australia and Antarctica; a 13th species, the Japanese river otter, was declared extinct in 2012, like many otter species before it. 4 dissimilar species of otter live in Fundamental or Southward America, some other 3 in South and Southeast Asia, two in sub-Saharan Africa, and one in Europe.

The ii species found in N America are river otters and sea otters, the latter of which are also found in Japan and the Pacific coast of Russia. River otters are non currently threatened, and are pervasive in Canada and the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico coastal areas in the US.

Bounding main otters, past contrast, nearly went extinct due to ambitious pelt hunting in the early part of the 20th century. While the governments of the US, Canada, Nippon, and Russia signed a treaty banning the hunting of sea otters, it took the Endangered Species Human action — under which sea otters gained protection in 1977 — for a recovery to brainstorm in hostage. "The saving of the bounding main otter," writes Glenn Vanblaricom of the Academy of Washington in his book on the animal, "is indeed one of the bully success stories in marine conservation."

But the terminal 40 years haven't consisted of unerring progress for the sea otter. The species' recovery has been considerably slower in California relative to other areas. In Alaska's Aleutian Islands, the species has seen a marked decline since the 1980s.

Theories for what's behind the driblet range widely, but the United states Fish and Wild animals Survey'south recovery programme for the species highlights predation, in particular from killer whales, equally the most important factor behind the refuse.

2. Do otters assail people?

You lot bet they do! A 2011 study found 39 anecdotal reports of river otter attacks in Northward America, 35 of which occurred afterward 1980. Either due to better reporting or to increased otter savagery, the numbers grew over the decades, from three in the 1980s to 13 in the 1990s to 17 in the 2000s. A decent share of the attacking otters have been rabid; in the '90s, 46 pct of otter attacks involved rabies, and in the '00s, 24 per centum did. The researchers institute iv prior scientific publications documenting attacks, including i that reported a mortiferous otter attack in India.

To be off-white, the vast majority — 77 percent — of the attacks the researchers analyzed involved North American river otters, and none announced to have involved sea otters.

3. Then body of water otters care for humans well?

You lot go along hoping that. I couldn't find whatsoever reports of attacks on humans from sea otters, only that may simply exist a function of sea otters being much rarer than river otters, and spending less time on or near dry country than river otters practise. Moreover, body of water otters take in at least some cases shown a willingness to attack primates, as in the example of the to a higher place sea otters in the Bronx Zoo, which killed a monkey with whom they shared an exhibit. One sea otter off the coast of British Columbia apparently raped and murdered a domestic dog.

4. Well, ocean otters are nice to animals as well monkeys and dogs, right?

An otter attacking an alligator.

Geoff Walsh/Facebook, via the Independent

Nope, they are horrific menaces to other species. And I don't just hateful in the mode carnivorous species e'er are to their prey. Bounding main otters murder even when it doesn't provide them with nutrient or offspring, like straight-up sociopathic spree killers. In 2010, veterinary Heather Harris and her co-authors Stori Oates, Michelle Staedler, Tim Tinker, David Jessup, James Harvey, and Melissa Miller published an article in Aquatic Mammals documenting about xix cases of ocean otters attacking infant seals. Hither'due south just ane:

A weaned harbor seal pup was resting onshore when an untagged male person sea otter approached it, grasped it with its teeth and forepaws, bit it on the nose, and flipped it over. The harbor seal moved toward the water with the sea otter following closely. Once in the water, the sea otter gripped the harbor seal's head with its forepaws and repeatedly bit it on the nose, causing a deep laceration. The ocean otter and pup rolled violently in the h2o for approximately 15 min, while the pup struggled to gratis itself from the ocean otter's grasp. Finally, the sea otter positioned itself dorsal to the pup's smaller body while grasping it by the head and property it underwater in a position typical of mating ocean otters. Equally the sea otter thrust his pelvis, his penis was extruded and intromission was observed. At 105 min into the run across, the sea otter released the pup, now expressionless, and began grooming.You read that correctly. Subsequently raping a baby seal to decease, this psycho licked his paws, like Hannibal Lecter or something.

5. Oh … oh no. But if that's what male sea otters are similar with babe seals they mistakenly remember to be female person body of water otters, what are they like with real sea otters?

Approximately that brutal. Harris cites another report that finds that about 11 percentage of sea otters found dead on the California coast from 1998 to 2001 were killed, at least in office, by trauma associated with mating. Indeed, trauma is the norm from bounding main otter mating, not the exception. Here'southward Harris once again:

Copulation commonly occurs in the water where the male sea otter volition arroyo the female from backside, grip her around the breast with his forepaws, and grasp her nose or the side of her face with his teeth.…Facial biting by the male commonly results in the development of pare and soft tissue lacerations of the female person's nose and face that can occasionally exist fatal.The problem is worse for females, of grade, but younger males often mimic mating behavior with each other, which can cause like injuries.

six. This is only horrible. Other species don't do this, practice they?

Oh, certain they do. Rape — or, as biologists usually call it, "forced copulation" — is a agonizing fact of life in the creature kingdom. It's been reported in primates like orangutans and chimpanzees, bottlenose dolphins, and ducks, among many other species.

So that attribute of otter sexuality isn't too unusual. What's weirder are a) otters'south tendencies to menace baby seals, b) the fact that male otters impale an awful lot of the female person otters with whom they copulate, and c) the necrophilia.

7. Necrophilia? Seriously?

This visual is meant to represent death.

(Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Otters, man. From Harris again:

In one prior written report on breeding-associated mortality, a tagged territorial male sea otter held a struggling female underwater until her body became limp and then copulated repeatedly with her carcass. Ten months later, this aforementioned male was observed with the carcass of another female sea otter. In both cases, the male was swimming, diving, guarding, and copulating with the carcass.

8. Stop! I don't desire to hear any more terrible things almost otters.

Besides bad! Here are two more.

Start, male otters sometimes hold pups ransom to force their mothers to give up some of their food. Here'southward how biologists Heidi Pearson and Randall Davis depict information technology:

A male approached a pup floating on the surface while its mother was diving for food. The male forced the pup under water as if trying to drown information technology. When the female surfaced, the male stole her food (a clam), after which the female and pup quickly departed.The human equivalent of this is probably going to a grocery store parking lot, finding a woman coming out with a pocket-size child, and holding a gun to the kid's caput until the mom gives you some of her food.

2d, otters can give you lot H1N1, meliorate known as "swine influenza," as our friends at The Verge have reported. Sampling along the coast of Washington State plant more lxx percent of otters there tested positive for H1N1.

ix. C'mon, in that location's got to be something otters are skillful for.

Fine, fine, I'll give them this much: they appear to be helpful in the fight against catastrophic climate modify. As explained by the National Wildlife Foundation's Robyn Carmichael, sea otters frequently eat body of water urchins, which in plough are known for eating massive amounts of kelp, which is very good at taking in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. More otters -> fewer ocean urchins -> more kelp -> less global warming. 1 studyfound that kelp beds where sea otters are nowadays soak up 12 times as much carbon dioxide as beds where they're not. The overall effect isn't that large, but every bit helps, and otters deserve some credit for chipping in.

For the record, I'thousand not really against attempts to save sea otters every bit a species. Those efforts are beauteous and valuable to the ecosystems of which otters are a part. I just think otters are jerks.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/2014/4/24/5640890/otters-rape-baby-seals-monsters-bad

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