It’s a sunny summer afternoon, and our group is embarking on a tour of the, a biodiverse tidal estuary on Monterey Bay. The slough is home to pupping harbor seals, endangered birds and the world’s densest concentration of southern sea otters – including a rogue otter that has learned a deadly new trick.
The Monterey Bay Eco Tours electric catamaran motors past a sea lion on the dock before touring the Elkhorn Slough in Moss Landing, Calif., on Thursday, Aug. 3, 2023. The skies and marshland are aflutter with more than 300 species of birds, many migrating on the Pacific Flyway. There are harbor seals doing the “banana pose,” with heads and rear flippers elevated to show they’re safe and happy. You might see alien-looking creatures that get swept in from the extremely deep Monterey Canyon – egg-yolk and lion’s mane jellyfish as wide as trash-can lids or aAs we head upriver, the captain introduces Rachel Clifford, the naturalist giving our tour.
Next up are brown pelicans that likely just flew two or three weeks from Baja California. Then it’s western gulls, which have a red spot on their bills that chicks peck at to stimulate feeding. “Sometimes you see juvenile gulls who should know better doing that, too. Lazy!” Clifford says.