Crystal Finn, who played Lauren Pawson in the Season 4 “America Decides” episode of “Succession,” is the latest victim in a series of bizarre otter attacks in Northern California.
Finn, who also has a role in Pamela Adlon’s upcoming directorial debut, was swimming in the Feather River near Plumas National Forest in July, she told the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday.
“I felt something on my back side and on my leg,” she recalled. “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 said: “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.”
She suspected that the attack might have been a mother protecting her offspring.
Finn was treated for her injuries at Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee, California, where she was told of other otter recent attacks in the area.
The actress said she was glad she hadn’t brought her young daughter along for the swim. “It would have been a lot worse,” she told the Chronicle.
A 5-year-old female sea otter made headlines in Santa Cruz, California, in July for attacking surfers and trying to steal their surfboards.
It’s all the more unusual because otters are not normally aggressive toward humans. Local photographer Mark Woodward told ABC 7 News in July that he’s seen the aquatic mammals growing increasingly aggressive. “I have photographed a lot of otters over the years; I have never seen anything like this.”
On Aug. 3, otters also attacked three women in southern Montana who were inner tubing down a tributary of the Missouri River. One victim needed to be airlifted to a hospital, the Associated Press reported.
Finn recently made her Broadway debut in Noah Haidle’s “Birthday Candles,” for which she won a Theatre World Award. The play also stars Debra Messing.
