Luna the Orca killed by tug boat

[Sportsdude]

[P class=rdheadline]Luna the orca killed by tugboat
[SPAN class=rddeckline]Young whale dies in propeller collision[/SPAN]

[P class=rdbyline]By [A href="mailto:[email protected]"]ROBERT McCLURE[/A]
P-I REPORTER

In the end, the wayward orca Luna died as he had lived and become well-known -- alone. And lonely.

The young killer whale, which somehow got separated from his whale family in the back bays of Vancouver Island, died in a grisly collision with a tugboat's propeller Friday.

[TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=151 align=right border=0][TBODY][TR vAlign=top][TD width=10] [/TD][TD colSpan=2][img height=226 alt=Luna src="vny!://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20060311/226lunaskipper.jpg" width=141 border=0][/TD][/TR][TR vAlign=top][TD width=10] [/TD][TD width=45][A href="vny!://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/photo.asp?PhotoID=86282"][img height=14 alt=Zoom src="vny!://seattlepi.nwsource.com/art2/zoom.gif" width=42 border=0][/A][/TD][TD class=credit align=right]Scott Eklund / P-I[/TD][/TR][TR][TD width=10] [/TD][TD class=caption style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 7px" colSpan=2]Bonding with people and boats may have led to Luna's demise.[/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]The death of a whale that attracted thousands of tourists -- some from overseas -- sparked anew arguments over whether Canadian officials and native leaders mishandled the situation.

One minute Luna was frolicking around the back of a boat, as he did routinely in an attempt to secure the companionship he craved.

The next minute, he was sucked into a tube containing a propeller powered by a 1,700-horsepower engine. It chopped the whale into bits. Until authorities recovered a large piece of the carcass, they were unsure they would even be able to positively identify the creature.

"I'm furious!" said Michael Harris of the Orca Conservancy, the Seattle-based group that had consistently argued that the whale should be recaptured and returned to his whale family, known as L pod, which frequents the waters around the San Juan Islands.

"This is the Katrina of orca advocacy," Harris said. "We saw a perfect storm gathering, and they sat around and did nothing, and now we've got a dead whale! It's incredibly tragic and frustrating."

Luna's sad saga first came to light in spring 2001, when he turned up in Nootka Sound, a remote waterway that snakes inland from the Pacific to the old logging town of Gold River, B.C. His pod is known to forage in the waters off Vancouver Island in the spring.

When the L pod returned to Puget Sound without Luna and an older male, his uncle, conservationists speculated the two may have been hunting together when the elderly uncle died. Others wondered if Luna had been purposely shunned by his pod. There's no way to know the truth.

Orcas enjoy a lifespan comparable to humans. Scientists who study orcas say the 1-year-old calf being left alone was not unlike a human infant suddenly isolated in the woods. Fortunately, though, Luna was able to catch his own dinner.

At first, Luna stayed about halfway up Nootka Sound, avoiding boats as a normal orca would. But after a time he began to follow vessels. He had his favorites. Orcas love to splash in the water together, to rub each other, and they enjoy close family bonds. Luna bonded with boats.

Then he started soliciting petting by humans. Eventually, Luna's search for intimacy grew disruptive. He was known to push around 30-foot logs for onlookers' entertainment, carry twigs on his head, jump out of the water next to boats and push boats around with his nose. In one incident, he momentarily lifted a kayaker out of the water far enough that she was temporarily trapped. Later, he damaged some boats.

With help offered by U.S. officials and conservationists on both sides of the border, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans came up with a plan to capture Luna and transport him back to be with his family -- just as the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service recaptured Springer, an orca from a Canadian pod that turned up alone near Vashon Island at about the same time.

But it was not to be. DFO officials had failed to consult closely with the local natives, or First Nations as they're known in Canada, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht -- who have long been angry at DFO because of its advocacy of salmon aquaculture in the area.

And the natives had come to believe that Luna embodied the spirit of their chief, Ambrose Maquinna, who died just days before the orca showed up.

When the DFO-sponsored capture was about to take place, members of the tribe showed up in canoes and lured the creature away from a pen in the water where DFO officials were trying to lure him. The Canadian government gave up on the recapture plan.

[TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=236 align=right border=0][TBODY][TR vAlign=top][TD width=10] [/TD][TD colSpan=2][img height=168 alt="First Nation" src="vny!://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20060311/226LONELY_LUNA_LA505.jpg" width=226 border=0][/TD][/TR][TR vAlign=top][TD width=10] [/TD][TD width=45][A href="vny!://seattlepi.nwsource.com/photos/photo.asp?PhotoID=86281"][img height=14 alt=Zoom src="vny!://seattlepi.nwsource.com/art2/zoom.gif" width=42 border=0][/A][/TD][TD class=credit align=right]AP[/TD][/TR][TR][TD width=10] [/TD][TD class=caption style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 7px" colSpan=2]Members of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation watch Luna while paddling in a canoe in Mooyah Bay, west of Gold River, B.C.[/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]"At the moment, the First Nation is in disbelief," Fisheries Program Manager Jamie James said Friday.

But he said the tribe still believes it acted in the whale's best interest, because authorities had said that if Luna were not accepted by his pod, he would be recaptured again and put into an aquarium.

"This is nothing we could predict or prevent in any way," James said of the accident Friday. "We stick to our statement that we let nature take its course."

Lara Sloan, a spokeswoman for DFO, said the department had never given up on trying to reunite Luna with his pod. The alternative plan, which the First Nation acquiesced to, was to lead him out of Nootka Sound into the Pacific Ocean when the pod was nearby.

"We always considered the lead-out an option. We were always watching where the pod was," she said. "We were continuing to work with the First Nations."

She said Canadian authorities have no reason to doubt the word of the skipper of the oceangoing tugboat, the 104-foot General Jackson, that Luna's death was accidental.

The vessel had come into Nootka Sound for refuge from foul weather in the Pacific, said DFO spokesman Dan Bate.

A spokesman for the tugboat company, Great Northern Marine Towing Ltd. of New Westminster, B.C., said the captain and crew of the vessel General Jackson were heartbroken about the accident.

"We're all very sad about it," said the spokesman, Barry Connerty. "We did everything we could to avoid that outcome."

[Sportsdude]

.

[P.C.]

 Just watchin it on our local news.  That's heartbreaking.[img style="CURSOR: pointer" onclick=url(this.src); src="vny!://www.cheesebuerger.de/images/more/bigs/c020.gif" border=0]

[kitten]

Poor thing.  I wish they had tried right away to unite it with its pod instead of letting it get used to people.  But no, they had to form committees and analyze it do death until it was too late.  People can be so stupid.  They get so involved in forming committees that they forget the common-sense approach to things.

[Good Times]

So now are the natives going to be claiming that the white men killed their chief?

... and the white men forming more committees to study the issue?

[P.C.]

I'm not 100%, but if I remember correctly, it was the First Nations, that vetoed the suggestion to attempt to reunite it with its pod.  The concern WAS, it had a better chance if they could get him back into the wild,as opposed to leaving it to'make nice' with the boats.  Looks like they were right.

[weird al]

I never thought reunification would work, not that I really know anything a bout it. But it seemed to me that once Luna was estranged from its pod, and had developed a habit of interacting with boats, it was just a matter of time before it came to this. That said, I really wish the Mowachaht-Muchalaht hadn't interfered with the attempts by DFO to effect reunification. It might have worked, after all.[/DIV]  [A href="vny!://www.westcoastaquatic.ca/Luna_news.htm"]vny!://www.westcoastaquatic.ca/Luna_news.htm[/A]

[perpetual]

I think a lot of questions are gonig to be asked now of the First Nations band that blocked the attempt to divert Luna to a passing pod....When that happened I thought they were all kooky....I mean I do understand there are cultural things involved, but that was taking it a bit far...now their "chief" has died twice...

I read a bit more about this, and I am surprised that this has been going on for the past 5 years (Luua first arrived in 2001)...didn't the DSO et al try again to divert Luna to passing pods over the years or did this First Nations band keep blocking the attempts?

[weird al]

I think they (1st  nations) will say that their " stewardship" program was helpful in minimizing contacts with boaters in the area. Still, the damn thing shouldn't have been there in the first place. They definitely interfered with the reunification, as I remember, until a deal was reachesd with DFO. Then they were out there monitoring and interfering with interactions all the time. Admirable, to be sure. Sounds like a bit of a boondoggle too. Here's one guy's viewpoint, showing that the whale was basically hooked on interacting with locals. Like I said, it should have been relocated to its pod, if at all possible.[/DIV][A href="vny!://www.reuniteluna.com/news_release.php?id=812"]vny!://www.reuniteluna.com/news_release.php?id=812[/A]

[P.C.]

Heading in to town a couple years back, we spotted a pod of whales.  It's such a beautiful thing to see.  We watched them for a while, then hopped back in the car, and sped to the next beach access and watched some more.  One of the smallest members of the pod, had gotten turned around, and was heading in the wrong direction.  Several of the lead whales turned back, trying to herd it back in the right direction.  They weren't having much luck.  *speed off to next beach access*.  We were almost panicking on the way to the next vantage point.

Finally the pilot whale turned back and managed to bring the young'un back into the fold.  It was most exhilerating watching this.  I will never forget the feeling.

Luna had a way better chance with reuniting than left to befriend humans.  It was only a matter of time, and sadly he met his inevitable demise.  I felt it was wrong THEN to stand in the way of this and obviously I now know it WAS wrong.