The Elkhorn Slough: I’m standing on the deck of the El Cat, long lens in hand, taking pictures of otters and other wildlife as we quietly glide through the waters of the Elkhorn Slough, an estuary neatly tucked into the crescent of Monterey Bay, which is neatly tucked into the Central Coast of California. For thousands of years, the Elkhorn Slough was a home to the California Sea Otter.

Then they were gone. If I had tried to see the otters while I was in college in the 1970’s for example, I would have been disappointed.

For almost a hundred years, there were no Enhydra lutris neresis to be seen here in the slough. Which was curious, because this quiet estuary is a perfect natural habitat for these waterborne cousins of the weasel, badger and mink.

The slough provided food and a quiet place to ‘raft’ together and raise their young, protected from the often-agitated Pacific Ocean and the sharks, lurking just outside the narrow inlet.

But the slough couldn’t provide enough protection from the Russian fur traders, who brutally slaughtered the passive creatures, satisfying the unquenchable demand for their luxurious pelts by the Chinese of the Qing dynasty in the 18th and 19th centuries, at quite a tidy profit.

 The population was decimated, not only here in the slough, but across the entire Northern Pacific rim, from Hokkaido in Japan, to Baja California.

By 1911, when the fur trade was finally outlawed, the entire Sea Otter population of the northern Pacific had been reduced to around 1500 animals, from a historical population estimated to be at least 250,000.

The California (or Southern) Sea Otter subspecies we can see in this estuary today was thought to be extinct.

Then, by some miracle, and the isolated protection of the very rugged coastline of Big Sur, a small colony of 50 or so animals was discovered around 1915. The discovery was kept secret by biologists working for the California Department of Fish and Game to protect this precarious gathering from further exploitation. 

After an article in June, 1938 in Life Magazine, the word was out: The ‘extinct’ California Sea Otter was photographed rafting in a group where the iconic Bixby Creek Bridge stands today.

With the hunting stopped, small groups of transient males began to rewild the estuary around 1984. By the early 2000’s, with significant help from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Recovery Program, the population rebounded to around 3,000 animals living along the California coast from Half Moon Bay to Santa Barbara, which is about 13% or their original range.

Currently, roughly 120 otters have reclaimed their ancient habitat and reside in the quiet waters of the Elkhorn Slough. The animals will spend almost their entire lives in the water, feeding on mollusks and crabs, giving birth and raising their young, floating among the grasses and sharing the space with sea lions, seals and a generous array of shorebirds and waterfowl.

So I’m aboard the ‘El Cat’ with my cameras and a few lenses to get a closer look at the otters and their neighbors. The El Cat is an electric -powered catamaran built by the Monterey Bay Eco Tours for exclusive use inside of the calm, protected waters of the estuary.

It’s the perfect platform for wildlife photography: Wide, stable and quiet. And it seems the animals are surprisingly tolerant of this raft of humans quietly gliding through the brackish channels of the slough. 

And beyond the photo-ops, there’s just something about ‘getting out on the water’; the scent of the ocean and the air coming off of the Pacific, and the constant shuffle of seabirds and seals, each jockeying for their place along the shoreline.

Seeing the otters in the water is joy enough, but as a keystone species, their return has had a profound benefit to the overall ecology of the estuary.

With the otters gone, invasive crabs exploded in the slough, causing erosion with their digging of burrows into banks that then became unstable and collapsed into the water with each high tide. The crabs also ate the snails and sea slugs that kept the eelgrass clean and healthy by ‘scrubbing’ the blades of grass clean of algae that choked the grass.

But as the otters returned, they developed quite an appetite for the crabs, eating 25% of their body weight everyday, with the crabs as the main course on the menu.

Here’s a video of the process that is a ‘must watch’ if you want to understand this ‘trophic cascade’ that’s a result of the otters’ return to the estuary.

There’s also this video from PBS Terra about the otters’ positive impact on the offshore kelp forests.

And while the otters are the feature attraction, a trip will also include views of sea lions and seals, and during Fall and Winter months, over 300 species of migratory shorebirds, waterfowl, and raptors call the estuary their temporary home.

And so as I’m scrubbing through the pictures from my boat trip, I pause and think that while I was studying back in college, the otters simply were not here to be photographed. 

And now they’re back. In my lifetime. Which is encouraging.  

The slaughter is being undone. 

Photo factor: Of course, you want to bring the longest lens you have in your kit. But at least shoot raw images if you think your lens is a little short, so you have a decent chance to crop the image in editing. Set your shutter release to burst, so when something amazing comes into view you’ve got a decent chance of grabbing a great image. I also usually set my camera to bracket exposures (one on, one under, one over) but out here I’m using burst mode, so I don’t want every third (bracketed) image to be the keeper; I trust the meter to do it’s job and let it rip.

Other notes: Regardless of the temperature from wherever you’re coming from, it can be foggy and cold on a boat on the estuary, even in the middle of summer. Bring some layers. And a hat.

I can get seasick watching television, but the Elkhorn Slough is a quiet waterway and the El Cat is a very stable catamaran, so I’ve never had an issue. It’s also electric powered, so there’s no fumes to deal with.

Traffic: A word of caution here; the traffic moves really fast along this part of Highway 1, so use caution driving in and out of the Moss Landing location. And southbound traffic from the Bay area can be heavy, as people use this sliver of highway to get to points south like Monterey and Big Sur, especially on weekends.