As told by Otter #841, a.k.a. Laverna:

Hi. My name is Laverna, although the nice folks at the otter hospital call me 841. You see, I am an otter, and I guess to you people, we all look alike or something. I get that. I do.

Anyway, I live in the beautiful waters of Monterey Bay, off the coast of California, where the incredible ecosystem is perfect for us otters and all kinds of other water creatures. It’s our happy place, where Mother Nature meant us to live out our lives. I believe that. I do.

Of course, life has its problems, and sometimes one of my relatives will get sick, or maybe get in the way of a shark or something. And that’s where the otter hospital really helps us. They even saved my mother’s life once. Her name is 723, and they fixed her up when she was hurt. So I love them. I do.

But now there’s a big problem. It’s the people — not the ones from the otter hospital, but the ones who think it’s okay to invade our home and mess things up, just like they do on land. They come in big groups with their surfboards, and they make all kinds of noise, and they feed us food that’s not good for us, just because they think we’re cute or something. And they leave their trash in the water. And I get really, really upset about that. I do.

So I thought and thought about it, and one day I had a really cool idea. Maybe if I made those people stop liking us, they would go away and leave us alone. So I did a bad thing: I snatched one of their surfboards away from them. And I practiced and practiced until I figured out how to ride it. And it was fun. It was.

But those people weren’t very smart, because they didn’t take the hint. So I had to keep doing it, and those stupid people just thought it was funny and they told their friends, and more people kept coming, and I only made things worse instead of better. So now I’m in trouble, and the folks at the otter hospital are trying to catch me because they say I need protection and something called rehoming or something. And now I’m really, really scared. I am.

‘Cause I don’t understand why my family and friends can’t be left alone, and why we have to move somewhere else and let those people take over our water home. We don’t mess up your land homes, do we? I just don’t think it’s very fair. I don’t.

So now I have another idea. Why can’t the people who make the rules just make one that says no people in the otters’ homes? I mean, there’s lots of other beaches in California, right? I think that’s fair. I do.

‘Cause “otterwise” pretty soon there may not be any more otters for you people to look at. And I think that would be a really, really bad thing. Don’t you?

I do.

Love,
Laverna (841)
9/10/23