Canada's Too-Friendly Killer Whale to Be Captured
Date: 14-Jun-04
Country: CANADA
Author: Allan Dowd
Scientist said it was clear the one-ton whale, nicknamed Luna, would not be able to link up with the pod on his own, so he will have to be trucked to the southern tip of Vancouver Island where the other orcas normally spend the summer.
Luna has been swimming alone in a bay on western Vancouver Island since 2001, but as human activity in the area picked with the approach of summer, he was having run-ins with boats and float planes in an apparent search for companionship.
Luna nearly collided with a landing float plane two days ago, an accident that could have killed both the whale and the people on the plane, officials said.
"For Luna's sake, we have to move now," said John Nightingale, director of the Vancouver Aquarium.
Orcas, or killer whales, normally spend their entire lives with other members of their pod. Scientists do not know if Luna, whose official designation is L98, became lost or was kicked out of the family unit.
Canada and the United States agreed late last year to move Luna, but had to wait until L-pod returned to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where it spends the summer swimming in both U.S. and Canadian waters.
Scientists plan to use a boat that Luna likes to follow to lure him into a floating net pen being constructed off the village of Gold River.
"He's been showing a lot of interest in the last few days. The crews have been setting up the pen and he's been helping them," Nightingale noted.
Luna will undergo several days of medical tests before he is trucked in a special holding tank to Pedder Bay, west of Victoria, and 200 km (120 miles) southeast of where he is now. The road trip is expected to take about 12 hours.
Luna will stay in a pen in Pedder Bay until L-pod swims into the area and he makes vocal contact. Scientist admit they do not know if the pod will accept him back since it is unclear how he became separated.
Two years ago, experts successfully reunited Springer, a sick and orphaned juvenile orca found in Puget Sound near Seattle, with her family pod, which summers in Canadian waters off northern Vancouver Island.
Luna's move is expected to cost at least C$550,000 ($420,000), and while the U.S. and Canadian governments have contributed a total of C$230,000, the rest will have to be raised from private sources.
