Time Running Out For Luna The Orca?

Time Running Out For Luna The Orca?

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Story Published: Jul 18, 2003 at 3:13 PM PDT

Story Updated: Aug 31, 2006 at 1:07 AM PDT

By Tracy Vedder

SEATTLE - Killer whale advocates believe time is running out for Luna, an orphaned killer whale stranded in Canada's Nootka Sound. Experts think Luna will wind up dead or in an aquarium, unless he's immediately reunited with his pod.

This time of year, Nootka Sound is a busy sport fishing harbor with lots of boats. Luna, who in orca years is still a toddler, treats them as toys. He swims next to and beneath the boats, whether their running or not. But they're dangerous playthings.

"I was trying to get out of this harbor and I thought I hit a log," says a fisherman from Nootka Sound. "I put it in neutral right away to see what I had hit and it was the whale!"

Luna loves to rub on propellers and he has the scars to show for it. Then there's the people factor.

"We've had people swimming, we've had people holding their infants in his open mouth for a photo, we've had people pouring beer down his throat, boat brushes on his tongue," says Marc Pakenham with the Luna Stewardship Program.

All together, it's a dangerous mix for a young orca who doesn't have his family to teach him orca right from wrong. So far, Luna has defied the odds, surviving on his own for nearly two years. But Luna advocates believe he has become so used to humans, he won't survive much longer.

"I suggest that anything's possible," says Pakenham. "From a gunshot, to a stick, to a propeller. I think that suggests there's a grave threat to this whale right now; we're very concerned."

A coalition of orca advocates is meeting in Seattle to put together their game plan to rescue Luna. It would be similar to last year's rescue of Springer in Puget Sound, using many of the same killer whale experts.

The group figures it has until September to get the rescue under way.

"The clock is ticking," says Pakenham, "and we have to get it going, we have to move now."

The plan is to reunite Luna with his orca family, "L" pod, in Puget Sound. The coalition figures if they can get Luna here by September, that will give the whales a couple of months to get used to each other before the killer whales return to open ocean for winter.

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