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Seattle — <\/span>When tourists travel to Seattle, it\u2019s common to take in the Space Needle and the downtown skyline from Puget Sound.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an itinerary that a newly arrived pod of killer whales appears to be following too.<\/p>\n Three orcas that had not previously been recorded in the Seattle area have delighted whale watchers<\/a> with several visits just off downtown this past month. They’ve also cruised by other shorelines in the region.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople … are all very happy to see this,\u201d said Hongming Zheng, who photographs whales in his spare time. It took him 10 hours of driving to find the mysterious pod. \u201cIt was epic.\u201d <\/p>\n Researchers keep detailed records of killer whales that frequent the Salish Sea<\/a>, the waters between Washington state and Canada, by identifying their fins and saddle patches \u2014 the grayish markings on their sides.<\/p>\n So it was a surprise when this pod of three orcas showed up in Vancouver, British Columbia, in March. The three weren\u2019t in any catalogs of local whales.<\/p>\n After some digging, researchers located photos of the pod in Alaska waters last year, said Shari Tarantino of the Washington-based Orca Conservancy. The pod includes an adult female and what are believed to be her two offspring, including a large young adult male.<\/p>\n They have now been designated as T419, T420 and T421 \u2014 the T standing for \u201ctransient,\u201d not \u201ctourist.\u201d<\/p>\n The visiting orcas have something that local whales don\u2019t: circular scars left by cookie-cutter sharks, which latch on to larger animals and slice a chunk off them. It was evidence they’ve spent time in the open ocean, because that’s where the sharks live.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know their exact origin with 100% certainty yet, but the leading hypothesis is that they\u2019re from Alaska, possibly the Aleutian region, given their appearance and the fact that some Alaskan populations range widely across the North Pacific,\u201d Tarantino wrote in an email.<\/p>\n As for why these three are thousands of miles from their home range? Tarantino said it’s possible they’re on a culinary field trip. This pod feeds on sea mammals \u2014 unlike the endangered salmon-eating resident orcas<\/a> \u2014 and there are plenty of harbor seals, sea lions and porpoises in the Salish Sea. <\/p>\n \u201cThey have quickly become a crowd favorite,\u201d Tarantino wrote. \u201cPeople spend a lifetime hoping to see a killer whale from shore, and these three have more than delivered.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n