#sea otter awareness week

[montereybayaquarium]

Carwash kelp: the tough, rough, colorful stuff that our otters just can’t get enough of! 🚗🧼🌿

Mammalogist Sarah is here to lend a paw and explain the why behind this classic sea otter enrichment standby.

[aquariumpacific]

Presenting: OTTER CHAOS 🦦

[alovelylonelygoodra]

Always remember that sea otters are important to our ecosystem and are a keystone animal!

Do your part to spread awareness of how vital they are to our oceans! 💕🦦 💕

[yotter-otter]

Happy Sea Otter Awareness Week! In honor of the sea otters, here’s a link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s otter cam/fundraiser.

[laeonj]

Every year during the last week in September, Sea Otter Awareness Week spotlights the important role of sea otters in nearshore ecosystems of the North Pacific Ocean.

[mevima]

Accessibility, you guys...

This image here is theoretically of an image and its alt text. The purpose of alt text, which most people can't see (it's hidden by your browser unless you explicitly enable it / look for it), is to give a screen reader something to read to the user, describing the image it's attached to. It's mainly for blind and visually impaired people.

So this alt text? Is fucking useless.

The image reads: #monterey bay aquarium #sea otter awareness week #behind the sea-ns seacrets #we get by with a little carwash kelp from our fronds #pawfect to roll up in for a weekend pawer nap

The alt text reads: screenshot of the tags from the reblogged post. the tags include puns using the word sea, and a Beatles joke where they "get by with a little car wash kelp from their fronds".

It's incomplete, with extra content that most people won't see, for no reason at all. It is in fact harder for the person writing the alt text to describe the image like that than it is to just transcribe the text. The goal is to give blind/VI people the closest experience they can get to seeing people.

Please. Please just transcribe the text. You can give a short description of the context or colors or whatever. But. Don't describe the text. Write it out. I am begging you.

[moonstruck-stormy]

Happy sea otter awareness week!

[lady-lazagna]

It is apparently Sea Otter Awareness Week so I don't wanna here shit about ANYTHING ELSE.

[literaphobe]

Mich did you know that it’s Sea Otter Awareness week?

the sea otters manifested george's visa

[montereybayaquarium]

Did you know some sea otters have purple bones? 🦴🤯

Wanna know why? Watch as our Aquarium staff play “What’s Your Favorite Sea Otter Fact?”

[aquariumpacific]

It's Sea Otter Awareness Week! Are you AWARE that sea otters are more than just cute? They are CRUCIAL! Otters are keystone species, meaning that the presence or absence of sea otters has an inordinately large effect on the health and balance of their ecosystem. When otters are plentiful, sea urchins, a favorite food item, are kept in check. When sea otters are scarce, sea urchins can consume too much giant kelp and other algae, reducing the kelp canopy and the species of fish and shellfish living in it. Sea otter populations help increase the abundance of kelp, creating a healthier ocean!

You can help sea otters by making others AWARE of how important they are, reducing your carbon footprint, and properly disposing chemicals and wastes that can end up in our oceans.

Photo of Cee the sea otter by Robin Riggs

[beardedmrbean]

Happy Sea Otter Awareness Week! Paws up to Elakha Alliance for leading efforts to bring these water weasels back to Oregon.

Oregon Zoo

[alovelylonelygoodra]

Important!! Celebrate otters!! <3

[rabbitcruiser]

World Otter Day 

World Otter Day is celebrated every year on the last Wednesday of May. This day was founded by the International Otter Survival Fund (IOSF). In 2009, it started as Otterly Mad Week and became International Otter Awareness Day in 2014. In 2016 the annual event evolved into World Otter Day. World Otter Day is observed to raise awareness about otters and their protection.

World Otter Day will be celebrated on Wednesday, 25 May 2022.

Interesting Facts About Otters

Otters are found on every continent except Australia and Antarctica.

These mammals have the densest fur of any animal, with as many as a million hairs per square inch in places.

While most species live in freshwater rivers, lakes, and wetlands; the sea otter and the smaller marine otter are found in the Pacific Ocean.

Their webbed feet and powerful tails act like rudders in the water making them strong swimmers.

There are 13 species of this weasel, the smallest species small-clawed otter weighs 3kg, while the largest species giant otter weighs 45 kg.

When they are in the water, their nostrils and ears close to keep water out.

Their fur is waterproof and keeps them warm in cold water.

While most otter species come ashore to give birth, sea otters are an exception, giving birth in water.

When it is time to nap, sea otters entangle themselves in kelp or sometimes intertwine their feet with other sea otters so they don’t float away.

Did you know that all otters are expert hunters that eat fish, crustaceans, and other critters?

To open shellfish, sea otters float on their back and place a rock on their chest, then smash the mollusk down on it until it breaks open.

Source

[readingforsanity]

Mother-Daughter Murder Night | Nina Simon | Published 2023 | *SPOILERS*

Nothing brights a family together like a murder next door.

A lighthearted whodunnit about a grandmother-mother-daughter trio of amateur sleuths. Gilmore Girls, but with murder.

High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she's built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Jana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage - and hoping that boredom won't kill her before the cancer does.

Then Jack - tiny in stature but fiercely independent - happens upon a dead body while kayaking. She quickly becomes a suspect in the homicide investigation, and the Rubicon women are thrown into chaos. Beth thinks Kana should focus on recovery, but Lana has a better idea. She'll put on her wig, find the true murderer, protect her family, and prove she still has power. With Jack and Beth's help, Lana uncovers a web of lies, family vendettas, and land disputes lurking beneath the surface of a community populated by folksy conservationists and wealthy ranchers. But as their amateur snopping advances into ever-more dangerous territory, the headstrong Rubicon women must learn to do the one thing they've always depend on each other.

Real estate mogul, Lana Rubicon, has her world rocked when she is diagnosed with cancer. In order to get away from her busy life and avoid telling her colleagues and friends about his diagnosis, Lana reaches out to her daughter, Beth, who lives 5 hours away from LA near the Elkhorn Slough in Monterey Bay, California. Beth's own daughter, Jack, spends a lot of time on the water, paddleboarding in the water before school and working for a kayak tour business whenever she can, working in the hopes of purchasing a sailboat of her own to visit the open seas.

After a daytime tour leads Jack to finding a dead body, their entire lives are turned upside down. With chemotherapy and exhaustion keeping her from working in her field, Lana takes up investigating the murder of a young man named Ricardo Cruz, a naturalist who worked for the land trust nearby.

Eventually, Beth and Jack take up investigating with Lana. Beth using her good looks to get close to Martin Rhoads, the son of her former patient, Hal, who is looking to sell his father's ranch to a cash buyer, and Lana using her professionals charms to speak with Martin's sister, Diana, who wants to turn the property into a equine spa for women.

Lana's investigation takes her through a slew of suspects, including Paul Hanley, the owner of the Kayak Shack where Jack works as a tour guide; Diana, whom she believes was having an affair with Ricardo, who had been close to the Rhoads family for almost his entire life; and Martin himself.

When Lana finally is able to come to the conclusion that Paul wasn't involved in anything other than illegal growing of marijuana, she enlists his help after Diana requests her help in trying to convince her brother to go along with her deal instead of selling the property.

Martin eventually is seized for the murder, along with arson, including that of the land trust building that he attempted to burn down after he became aware of the plans that Ricardo and his father had concocted for the property, in addition to the fire that killed his own mother and Ricardo's father many years ago, along with several other crimes. Lana is injured when Martin hits her, but three weeks after the events, everyone makes a full recovery.

In the end, Lana's cancer goes into a somewhat remissive state, and she begins subletting an office space near the marina, where she will now be working. She also gives Jack her bedroom back, the location where she had been sleeping for the last several months and moves in Beth's garage, to be close to her daughter and granddaughter, something she never thought she would be.

4/5 stars. Definitely a cute coming of age story for Jack, and a mother-daughter murder night for sure.

[safereturndoubtful]

Scalloway

Sunday 13th August

I docked at Scalloway on my bicycle trip in 2005 coming off the boat that used to call into Shetland on route Iceland - Faroes - Shetland - Denmark. It stopped calling in in 2008. I remember it being windy, but not a lot else. It’s the main reason I wrote a blog these days, to jar my memory in the future.

Scalloway is Shetland’s second town in size, but very different in appearance to Lerwick. Lerwick buildings are very grey, just slightly different shades of it. Scalloway’s buildings are in bright pastel colours, a little like Tobermory on Mull. It is also the home to Shetland’s University, which specialises in engineering for off-shore wind farms, and fishing. At this time of year though, especially at weekends, the buildings and car parks are all empty, and made an excellent place to stop, close to the sea, and with the weather fine all weekend, quite a bit of sea traffic coming and going from the harbour.

The University also runs a Tourism course, part of which is catering, and two nights a week has a restaurant run by students in the main building. It is fine dining, and though not quite Noma, it has a good reputation, and the prices are high.

The hundred metres or so that make up the Main Street have a few shops, two hotel bars and a cafe. At the weekends the cafe opens late, and on the Friday Roja and I walked down for a beer and a takeaway fish and chips. Despite all this there still are very few visitors. The season is very short, finishing in effect this week when the schools return.

Just beyond the University buildings is a well-defined path to the lighthouse on the headland of the Ness of Westernshore. After that the track, such as it is, continues around the rocky shore to the north to the community of Burwick, about two more miles. These sort of tracks right next to the coast, basically just sheep trods, are typical of Shetland, and always provide plenty of interest, with the variety of sea birds, seals, otters, and just the chance there may be a whale close. At Burwick there is a rough track for 4WD that climbs steeply inland and back south to Scalloway.

We did this hike twice, firstly clockwise, but then more adventurously, the opposite direction, but across the rough moorland on the ridge of the hills, at about 100 metres above sea level.

All this was sandwiched around the rugby on Saturday, and a couple of visits into town.

On Sunday afternoon we left Scalloway, aware that with the schools returning this coming week the University also is likely to get busier. It’s a great place to stop up in the van in the height of the holiday, but not otherwise.

We drove the fifteen minutes back to Lerwick and attended to a few chores, before settling at the car park for the Ness of Sound trail, about a mile south of town.