Aggressive Otter
I was chased out of the water by a sea lion one time, and it started barking at me on the sand.
By the way, I can't believe someone ditch their board, because of an otter.
About a month ago, researchers knew there was a problem when hundreds of sea lions began surfacing on Southern California beaches.
The charismatic but typically unaggressive sea mammals were biting people who approached them.
To understand their behavior, researchers looked toward the food chain. Small fish, such as anchovies and plankton, probably ate toxic algae that was blooming in the Pacific Ocean.
Larger mammals, including sea lions and dolphins, then ate the fish and the toxic algae they carried, researchers found.
Unbeknown to them, sea mammals were ingesting domoic acid — a neurotoxin produced by the algal bloom.
In the ecosystem, sea lions were perhaps hit the worst, suffering from seizures, brain damage, dehydration and muscle spasms as hundreds began to die.
The sick animals have been left feeling aggravated, which has led them to attack people and their pets walking by on the beach, researchers say…….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/07/07/california-algae-bloom-sea-lions/