. California fish and game. Fisheries -- California; Game and game-birds -- California; Fishes -- California; Animal Population Groups; Pêches; Gibier; Poissons. WHITE SHARK ATTACKS ON SEA OTTERS 197 Russia in the late 1800's and reported that sea otters were bitten by sharks because he had often seen tooth fragments in wounds; he did not specifically mention white sharks. Orr (1959) removed the first verified white shark tooth fragment from a lacerated sea otter found near Carmel, California, in 1958 and speculated that other otters may have died of shark bites. Mattison and Hubbard (1969) ne
. California fish and game. Fisheries -- California; Game and game-birds -- California; Fishes -- California; Animal Population Groups; Pêches; Gibier; Poissons. WHITE SHARK ATTACKS ON SEA OTTERS 197 Russia in the late 1800's and reported that sea otters were bitten by sharks because he had often seen tooth fragments in wounds; he did not specifically mention white sharks. Orr (1959) removed the first verified white shark tooth fragment from a lacerated sea otter found near Carmel, California, in 1958 and speculated that other otters may have died of shark bites. Mattison and Hubbard (1969) necropsied 13 sea otter carcasses but found no lacerating wounds of the type described by Orr. Wild and Ames (1974) reported on 88 carcasses necrop- sied between January 1968 and July 1973; only one had a laceration pattern which was suspected to have been the result of a shark bite while 22 were thought to have been hit by boat propellers. Morejohn et al. (1975) summarized data gathered on all 286 dead sea otters recorded in California between January 1968 and July 1974. They found a white shark tooth fragment in one sea otter carcass (DFG SO-381-73) and indicated that a few other carcasses contained laceration patterns similar to those made by the white shark. The same report attributed 47 deaths to boat propellers; however, an addendum pointed out that the importance of boat propellers had probably been overstated and the impor- tance of shark bites had probably been understated. In August 1974, a dead sea otter, presumably from a group transplanted from Alaska in 1969-70, was found on a beach on the central coast of Washington. The carcass contained numerous lacerations and a tooth fragment was found (Keyes 1975) which was later identified as that from a white shark. In January 1975, a sea otter carcass (DFG SO-438-75) was found on a beach at Point Lobos State Reserve, California. The animal was initially thought to have been hit by a boat. Later, B. J. Davis (California Sta
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