Norwalk Seal Pick 49ers

If a 30-year-old harbor seal named Orange from Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk is to be believed, the 49ers will win the Super Bowl.

On Friday, Orange had a choice of retrieving a football ball with the 49ers banner or the Ravens banner.

Orange first retrieved the 49ers ball, but brought back the Ravens ball. On her third and final chance, she selected the San Francisco ball.

“She’s a big fan of the 49ers’ pistol-formation offense,” Vicki Sawyer, a member of the Aquarium’s seal team, said.

The aquarium said Orange's time spent in Baltimore would not play into her decision because she was there before there was a Baltimore Ravens team.

Orange was stranded in New England, but Baltimore was her temporary home when she was rehabilitated at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. 

The Baltimore Colts left Baltimore for Indianapolis in 1983, when Orange was 1, and the Ravens’ first year was 1996, after Art Model moved his Browns from Cleveland. 

Orange lived at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago from 1991 until 2005, when she came to The Maritime Aquarium, so Orange had been in Chicago for five years by the time of the Ravens’ first season.

Orange is one of seven harbor seals at The Maritime Aquarium and there are public feedings at 11:45 a.m., 1:45 p.m. and 3:45 p.m. daily.

Friday’s Super Bowl selection was actually a fun variation on a daily behavior in which Orange retrieves and “recycles” an empty water bottle.

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