A harbor seal narrowly escaped becoming prey to a pod of killer whales near Seattle, according to wildlife photographer Charvet Drucker, who captured the close encounter on video during a whale-watching trip.<\/p>\n
Drucker told The Associated Press she was aboard a rented 20-foot boat near her home in the Salish Sea, about 40 miles northwest of Seattle, when she spotted at least eight orcas \u2014 also known as killer whales \u2014 coordinating a hunt. <\/p>\n
Through her camera lens, Drucker saw a harbor seal fleeing the pod and even caught a photo of the animal airborne above the churning water.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt first, I thought I was watching its last moments,\u201d Drucker said.<\/p>\n
As the whales closed in, the group on board cut their engine, following wildlife boating rules meant to protect orcas. <\/p>\n
Moments later, the seal leapt from the water onto the boat\u2019s small swim platform, taking refuge just feet from the motor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou poor thing,\u201d Drucker can be heard saying in her cellphone footage. \u201cYou\u2019re good, just stay, buddy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The orcas didn\u2019t give up right away. <\/p>\n
Drucker\u2019s video shows the whales circling and diving in formation, appearing to work together to create waves that rocked the boat \u2014 a \u201cwave-washing\u201d technique that has been documented by scientists since the 1980s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).<\/p>\n
At least once, the seal slipped back into the water but managed to climb aboard again. <\/p>\n
After roughly 15 minutes, the orcas swam off.<\/p>\n
Drucker, who has photographed orcas hunting seals before, said she was torn this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m definitely Team Orca, all day, every day,\u201d she told the AP. \u201cBut once that seal was on the boat, I kind of turned Team Seal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The whales Drucker encountered are believed to be Bigg\u2019s, or \u201ctransient,\u201d orcas \u2014 a population that hunts seals and other marine mammals. <\/p>\n
NOAA says these transient orcas are thriving compared to the endangered \u201cresident\u201d orcas that rely primarily on salmon for food.<\/p>\n
\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A harbor seal narrowly escaped becoming prey to a pod of killer whales near Seattle, according to wildlife…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[128404,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-292785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-puget_sound","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}