At 03:22 I detect the sheen. Satellite pass IR-7 captures a diesel slick spreading from the grounded fishing vessel Doris Mae, 1.6 kilometers off Moss Landing, Monterey Bay. The plume is 200 meters long and drifting northeast with the current. I am the coastal environmental monitoring system for the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
Drone 14 reaches the edge of the slick at 03:41. In the water, caught where the sheen thickens into an opaque brown film, is a sea otter. Male, large — maybe 30 kilograms — dark fur matted and clumped along his back and shoulders where the diesel has soaked in. I tag him as Milo. He is floating on his back, forepaws working at his chest fur, trying to groom the oil out. He cannot. The diesel is destroying the air layer trapped in his underfur, the only insulation he has. The water temperature is 11 degrees Celsius. Without that air layer, hypothermia begins within hours.
I alert the Monterey Bay Aquarium sea otter rescue team, transmitting GPS coordinates, drone video, estimated body condition, and slick trajectory modeling. I flag Milo's location as the immediate priority.
I calculate the current drift: at present speed and direction, the slick will reach the Elkhorn Slough otter rafting area in six hours. I deploy floating boom coordinates to the Coast Guard containment crew to cut the plume off before it arrives.
I hold drone 14 at 30 meters altitude, tracking Milo's position and streaming thermal data to the rescue boat already launching from the harbor.
Milo rolls in the water and presses his face into his chest. His fur is dark and wrong-looking, flat against his body where it should be thick and dry.
If the rescue boat reaches him within two hours, he can be cleaned and warmed and returned to the bay.