If caught by an alert visitor, these folks can simply explain that otters consume quantities of things that people also would like to eat, such as crabs, shrimp, clams, and suchlike. A little hostility is understandable, because otters are both efficient hunters and prodigious eaters. But no matter how annoyed they may feel, Alaskans should explain no further. For example, don't tell visitors about the recent study of the behavior of sea otters in Monterey Bay. Since 1985, Marianne Riedman of the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Jim Estes of the University of California at Santa Cruz have kept telescopes trained out to sea, observing and recording the behavior of 60 tagged otters.
Crime is a way of life among the otters.
They steal food from one another incessantly. Pups snatch meals from their mothers, and males mug any female in their territory for a snack. In fact, Riedman and Estes estimated that male otters obtained about a third of their caloric intake by theft. One typical behavior, they found, was for a male otter to locate a pup, then float nearby waiting for its mother to surface and confiscate whatever food she brought the moment she came up. Sometimes males even grabbed the pups and held them hostage until the mothers handed over their food.