Several years ago in California, marine mammal rehabilitators prepared
to release an animal back into the Pacific Ocean. I don't recall what
animal this was - a fur seal? sea lion? other mammal?  While it was
intially hailed as a great thing, the just-released animal was eaten
by a Killer Whale (Orca). I need to know which species of animal it was that was
released. Thank you. Carol Mitchell

While there may be an actual case of this happening, I am most
familiar with a "news item" of this type that turned out to be a hoax.
The story was widely circulated by email a few years ago. This still
appears on many Web sites as fact, but has been debunked by Snopes,
the Internet's prime source of "urban legend" verification:

http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/fakenews.htm

Another researcher may find true instance of a similar occurrence, but
the one mentioned above is the best known (and most often reprinted)
such story that I know of.

I first heard this story in a letter to the editor of a community
newspaper back around 1994. In that version, it was a baby seal. It's
not a story that's out of the realm of possibility. If you know
someone who is on a college campus, see if that person has access to
Lexis Nexis, the incredibly comprehensive database of newspaper and
magazine articles. A Lexis search might turn up the origin of the
story.