Whats Shamu doing to that baby seal?
SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) — Endangered Seattle salmon are breathing more easily after a traveling troupe of killer whales took a big bite out of the area’s harbor seal population during a two-month feeding binge, wildlife experts say. Distraught seals huddling on shore in Hood Canal near Bremerton, Washington, are safe to go back in the water, though perhaps half of their friends will not be there, having been chomped down by 13 whales, which have finally left town. “At the end of last week the seals were up on the bank quivering,” said Steve Jeffries, a marine mammal biologist at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. “This was a perfect place to be a killer whale, probably a bad spot if you happened to be a harbor seal.” The killer whales, or orcas, were likely drawn by the ample supply of some 1,500 Hood Canal seals, growing as large as 250 pounds (114 kg) on a steady diet of 200 salmon a day. The seals added to the strain on local salmon runs already depleted by
