I used to meet a coworker after work at Casa Maria, me snagging free appetizers while my friend tried meeting starving schoolteachers that would be there for the free appetizers too. While overhearing tourists commenting on otters they would see, we started a tale about the mechanical otters that rolled on an underwater rail, placed there to attract tourists. Sometimes seeing kayakers and divers out on the kelp we would add them to the ruse, saying they were maintaining the mechanical otters. We would hear the tourists telling each other “did you hear that? the otters are not real”
“We began seeing larger than typical rafts in mid-January,” Jess Fujii, manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium ‘s sea otter program told, The Pine Cone this week. “The numbers have varied. But we estimate 100 to 250 otters have been resting along Cannery Row over the last few weeks. “
