Broadway actress Crystal Finn said she had a frightening encounter with an otter during a trip to Northern California in July.
The actress, who appeared in the Succession season 4 episode “America Decides,” told the San Francisco Chronicle she was attacked by otters while taking a dip in the Feather River in Plumas National Forest, about 75 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe.
“I felt something on my backside and on my leg,” Finn said.
“I started looking around and yelling out and [the otters] popped up right in front of me. Then they dove down and started going at me again,” she continued.
“I could see the bites on my legs and knew I had been bitten on my butt — that one was the worst, but I couldn’t see it. The bites really hurt,” Finn added of the vicious otter encounter.
While Finn wasn’t sure what motivated the otters to attack, she believed it might have been down to the mothering instincts of the parent protecting her young, she told the San Francisco Chronicle. She was glad she hadn’t brought along her daughter for the swim, otherwise, “It would have been a lot worse,” she told the outlet.
The actress, who has appeared on Broadway alongside actress Debra Messing in the play Birthday Candles, said she was treated for her injuries at Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee, California.
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Finn’s comments come after a group of Montana women was also attacked by otters.
Earlier this week, Jen Royce, of Bozeman, Montana, shared the details of an otter attack she survived in a Facebook post. On Aug. 2, she was enjoying an evening float on inner tubes down the Jefferson River with some friends when two otters attacked.
“I saw one otter right behind my friend before it attacked,” Royce wrote in her post. “I didn’t even have a chance to get the words ‘there is an otter behind you’ out of me before it attacked her.”
The women were floating about 3 miles upstream from Sappington Bridge when they noticed “one or two otters,” the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks said in a statement.
An otter approached and attacked them, officials said. The women exited the water and called 911 as the otter swam away. Montana Highway Patrol, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Jefferson Valley Ambulance, the MFWP, Life Flight and a local landowner responded to the call, according to the statement.
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The women were treated for their injuries in Bozeman, the release said.
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“While attacks from otters are rare, otters can be protective of themselves and their young, especially at close distances,” Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks said in the statement. “They give birth to their young in April and can later be seen with their young in the water during the summer. They may also be protective of food resources, especially when those resources are scarce.”
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Source: HIS Education