Cute and Cuddly Keiko?

There's a certain mystique about Keiko, once the killer whale that lived at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. Many of you remember this cuddly killer whale was originally housed in Mexico City, stayed for awhile at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, and then was shipped to Iceland to roam free before dying. The star of the movie "Free Willy," this killer whale was an overnight success at the Aquarium. After his move from Mexico City, his new digs were quite a bit larger than the former one.

Many forget that Keiko was a killer whale, the species that kills gray-whale calves as they make their way up the Oregon Coast from Mexico to their summer playground in Alaska. These whales also kill sea lions, sometimes for sport and sometimes for food. While we can all appreciate fewer sea lions, let us not forget they are predators of the ocean not the cute and cuddly Willys of the movie fame.

If you have an interest in seeing these whales, they can sometimes be spotted in pods off the coast. The best place to see them is in Alaska but they can also occasionally be seen off the coast at Depoe Bay. Pods consist of two or more killer whales that hunt and feed together. We should also remember that killer whales do not hunt humans. Let's just leave that to the great white shark.