Just effin great. "Quarantine's lifted, let's go to the beach"
From Hakai Magazine:
Salish Sea Killer Whales Have a Surprising New Way of Hunting
The daring predators are deliberately beaching themselves in pursuit of prey on land.
Bigg’s, or transient, killer whales use stealth and teamwork to hunt their marine mammal prey. For a seal hightailing it from an attack, the best bet for survival is to get out of the water. But now, even dry land is not safe.
Demonstrating a dramatic behavior previously only observed in some killer whales in the southern hemisphere, Bigg’s killer whales in the Salish Sea have now been seen deliberately running aground to ambush prey. The behavior, witnessed at Protection Island, a national wildlife refuge near the mouth of Discovery Bay in Washington State, in August 2016, was described in a recent study.
“When the group made the first charge at the shallows, I just remember shouting and pointing,” says Justine Buckmaster, a naturalist with a Washington-based tour company who witnessed the incident. At first, Buckmaster says she was worried that the stranded whale had accidentally beached itself, but her concern quickly turned to excitement. “I realized I had just witnessed something really rare in our region,” she says....
....MUCH MORE
Previously on the high-contrast bastards, December 6: "Have rogue orcas really been attacking boats in the Atlantic?"
As for the sharks:
"Walking sharks discovered in the tropics"
....“At less than a metre long on average, walking sharks present no threat to people"
Said the one-legged man.
