SEATTLE (KOMO) — Seattle chef Renee Erickson loves seafood, and her restaurants like The Whale Wins in Fremont are famous for dishing up all kinds of bounties from the sea with one exception: chinook salmon.
The James Beard award winning chef permanently removed chinook salmon – also known as king salmon - from her menu in 2018.
"Most people didn't even notice," Erickson said. "It's not like it was this big to-do where we were making a grand gesture." She said the plight of the southern resident orcas motivated her to shift towards sustainability.
In 2018 the world watched as a J-Pod female known as Tahlequah carried its dead newborn calf for 17 days. The native orca population is dwindling as is the whales' main food source: chinook salmon.
