The Bay Area Animals That Made 2025 More Tolerable

This week, we’re looking back on the best art, music, food, movies and more from the year. See our entire Best of 2025 guide here.

I think we can all agree that the biggest challenge of 2025 has been trying not to have an existential breakdown pretty much every single day. For some people, safeguarding mental health looks like regular hikes, daily meditation practices or joining a book club. For me, it’s monitoring the habits of local animals for hijinks, middle fingers at humanity and, well, fluffy butts.

Here are just some of the animals that helped me survive 2025.

Opal the Otter

In April, 30,000 humans (!) managed to hold it down for one more day by participating in an otter-naming poll held by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And who could blame them? This nameless sea sausage was found alone, three weeks old, tilting her head adorably, showing off her teefs and not knowing how to do pretty much anything else.

After the aquarium released squeal-worthy footage of the floating fur loofah, the name Opal beat out Hazel and Quinn to reign victorious. Opal made her public debut at the end of April and has been melting hearts ever since. (Though if Monterey’s next high-profile rescue isn’t named Harry P’Otter, I’m rioting.)

The Bay Bridge Bunny

In October, a driver on the Bay Bridge called 911 because they saw a bunny “hopping along the raised catwalk on I-80 eastbound.” To everyone’s great surprise, that driver was not laughed off the phone and California Highway Patrol was soon dispatched. Officers J. Landquist and H. Contreras quickly clocked the bunny, chased it around the right lanes for several (probably hilarious) minutes before apprehending the wascally wabbit.

“Hops-a-lot,” as the officers named it, was given a clean bill of health from the legends at Yggdrasil Urban Wildlife Rescue and released on San Bruno Mountain, where there’s already a colony of brush rabbits. Word has it the rogue bunny was trying to get to Treasure Island to search for buried gold using only a tiny trowel and its kicky-kicky legs. That last bit is a lie, but these are the things I tell myself to get through the week.

The Legendary Claude

Yes, 2025 was the year that we unexpectedly lost San Francisco’s favorite albino alligator, Claude. But it was also the year that the entire city showed up to let him know just how much we loved him.

He started the year strong, receiving his own Cal Academy webcam back in April, finally putting rumors of him being made of rubber to rest. Then in September, there was the month-long birthday shindig that marked his 30th hatchday. Claude was lavished with cake, a new line of merch, a city-wide treasure hunt, a dinner hosted by a Top Chef winner, a themed Nightlife party, endless rounds of “Happy Birthday,” thousands of well-wishers and, to cap it all, a very cute book in his honor. Kardashians have done less for birthdays.

Claude lived at the Steinhart Aquarium for 17 years and was the unofficial mascot of Cal Academy. Be sure to raise one last glass to Claude before the year is out. He is utterly irreplaceable.

Violet, Valkyries Mascot

She’s a raven. She’s cute. She shakes her booty. She wears glasses. We met her for the first time this year. She counts for this list. Shut up.

The Colossal Squid Exhibitionist

“Oooh, look at me! I’m a giant squid flashing my glow sticks 2,000 feet under the South Atlantic Ocean’s surface! You can’t catch meee!”

Except this year, some intrepid smartypants from Palo Alto’s Schmidt Ocean Institute finally did — on video at least. Using a remote-controlled underwater robot named SuBastien (he has arms and everything!), they captured Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni alive and swimming around for the first time since these deep sea rave bags were discovered a century ago inside the belly of a whale.

No harm came to this tentacled party pod in the course of filming. May he live long, prosper and appear on camera again at some point in the next 100 years.

A(nother) Surfing Otter

Despite all impressions given by Opal the otter (above), I learned this year (from an episode of Radiolab) that otters can be — how do I put this? — total assholes.

Out to prove this was an otter in Santa Cruz who went after the toes of a 21-year-old surfer named Isabella Orduña in October. After she slid into the water to see what was happening, Orduña’s surfboard was quickly commandeered by what the college student described as a “big, fuzzy, chunky bear of an otter.” What’s more, another surfer had his board hijacked in a similar manner by an otter just a few days before.

The hairy culprit might be the infamous Otter 841, who had a grand old time harassing Santa Cruz surfers back in 2023 and 2024. The most recent otter menace was not, however, wearing 841’s telltale white tracking tag. So either 841 has liberated herself from her ankle monitor, or another otter has taken up her mission to terrorize humans. Either way, seeing otters on surfboards is enormous fun for the rest of us.

That Naughty Escaped Tegu

It’s a scientific probability that prior to June 2025, only three humans in the Bay Area even knew what a tegu was.

Applause then, for the hikers who found one wandering around in Santa Clara County last summer, and entirely resisted the urge to freak the eff out. Instead, those very sensible humans reported seeing a massive black-and-white lizard stomping its way through the brush and generally living its best life. But the Santa Clara County Parks Department was not thrilled about the new addition to local wildlife; the Central and South American reptiles mostly love snacking on birds, eggs and small mammals that are important to the local ecosystem.

A week after it was first spotted, park rangers located and rescued the tegu near the Grant Lake dam. Thank you, abandoned/escaped tegu for teaching us about your kind.

KitKat, Corner Store Legend

As we all know, the end of KitKat’s life was as heart-wrenching as it possibly could have been. But what followed the death (by goddamn Waymo) of everyone’s favorite bodega cat stands as a beautiful testament to the Mission District’s community, the animal-lovers of San Francisco and, most of all, to KitKat himself.

KitKat was a creature that touched so many hearts (and drunken hands) over the years, his passing inspired an enormous shrine on the street outside Randa’s Market, as well as calls for new regulations on robotaxis. He will forever be a symbol of everything that makes San Francisco wondrous — and of the litany of tech-related ways it sucks.

We love you KitKat. We’ll miss you forever, KitKat.