Florida Mom Is Forced To Save Teenage Daughter By Tackling An Aggressive Sea Otter
POLK COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA/CNN) - An otter in Florida learned not to mess with mom when it attacked a 17-year-old and her dog and got thrown out of the family’s house for its trouble.
Gwyn Ewert, 17, let the family’s French bulldog, Scooter, out on the back porch just before dawn Tuesday in Lakeland, Florida. She panicked when she heard fighting coming from the porch.
Before we get into anything here I just want to start this blog off by saying sea otters and seals are totally different things. Initially, I had the two confused but a quick google search this morning shattered my world in an instant.
I learned this is the sea otter (the real perpetrator):
And learned that this is a seal (what my brain originally envisioned):
Admittedly, when I first read this headline I audibly laughed. Not that I found a seal attacking an innocent family in their own home to be funny (it would be pretty funny though).
The commotion woke the whole house, and Gwyn’s mother, Casina Ewert, burst in, tackling the otter.
"Man, this mom must have some serious hit power… what's her 40?"
That was my initial thought when reading that line, not knowing the difference between the two animals yet. I had envisioned some burly ass seal roaming into some house and causing a stirrup the likes of which this world has never seen. I will admit, the headline "tackles otter to save teenage daughter" definitely influenced the way I viewed the entire story. I feel like an otter is too small to tackle, but then again, what do I know.
Advertisement
Did I think some random mom could lay the boom on such a big animal? Unlikely but sure, mom strength is a very real thing and I'm sure this woman could've taken the head clean off a seal if need be. I thought this random mom had just laid a Ray Lewis-esque hit stick on an absolute sleazeball of a seal (seal pictured below).
This was line from the article that made me question the way I was viewing the animal at hand:
Casina Ewert said. “I snatched it by the tail, and then, I held it up like a prize. The otter’s going crazy. It was clawing at me and grabbing on to the backs of the furniture in my house.”
"Is this woman the Incredible Hulk?"
That was a real-life thought I had to myself. A normal sea otter weight ranges from around 30lbs - 100lbs meanwhile the smallest seals are like 130 pounds. I was just sitting there imagining some regular woman lifting up an enormous animal like a small trinket of sorts. And that's where I discovered my fault.
Sorry for the sidetracking, carrying on.
I'm not gonna lie, this story was about 100x more interesting when I thought it was a seal who busted into this home. But some measly little sea otter? Who cares. I feel like these things definitely find their way into different houses all the time. Especially by the water like this house. They don't even seem like that big of a threat. I mean, what can a sea otter do to possibly harm a human?
Casina Ewert tossed the otter back outside before discovering it had bitten her daughter in the leg.
Not great. With how things are going with the Coronavirus and various different host animals for the virus, I wouldn't be taking any chances. Now they went and got the daughter the proper rabies shots and whatnot for the situation. Still, I'm not trusting any animals to bite me anytime soon. Sea otters included. I would have never gotten bitten. Simple as that. I would've outsmarted that little son of a bitch in about two seconds. My mom wouldn't have even woken up. I would've dealt with the whole situation before it got to the point that I'm having a full-scale war against a sea otter in the living room.
Overall though, I have to say this article was very informative and not anything. Next thing I know they'll tell me manatees are different from seals too.
Yeah…. right.