Local Natives Thwart Capture Of Luna

Wednesday, June 16, 2004
GOLD RIVER, BC - Aboriginal people in dugout canoes patted a dangerously friendly orca and led him out to sea Wednesday in an effort to thwart the capture of the creature they regard as the reincarnation of their late chief.

Officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans denied the protest was responsible for delaying the launch of a plan to eventually reunite Luna with his pod. However, scientists and veterinarians did not attempt Wednesday to lead the whale into a net pen as scheduled.

Wednesday morning, 17 men and women of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht band boarded two traditional craft at the Gold River dock on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

By mid-afternoon, Luna was about 20 kilometres away from the pen where he was supposed to spend the next week.

Luna playfully followed the canoes. Videotape shows him swimming alongside the paddlers, spinning over onto his back while some of the aboriginals patted his skin, rubbed his teeth and scratched his belly with hands and paddles.

Luna appeared to nibble at their wrists.

"We hope to divert Luna away from capture," said Mike Maquinna, chief of the Mowachaht First Nation.

He said band members believe Luna embodies the spirit of his late father.

Luna arrived in Nootka Sound about the same time as the elder chief died in 2001.

"That means a lot in that my late father expressed to a couple of members that he was going to come back as a killer whale," said Maquinna.

"The killer whale in our culture is very important and significant in that the killer whale is the caretaker of the sea as the wolf is the caretaker of the land."

However, the seemingly affectionate behaviour Luna exhibited Wednesday with the paddlers is exactly the kind of behaviour that has led officials with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Vancouver Aquarium to try to get him out of Nootka Sound.

Marilyn Joyce, marine mammal coordinator for Fisheries, said she hopes to meet with Maquinna, but Luna's relocation plan will go ahead.

"Moving ahead at this point is the only option," she said.

"Certainly, they had indicated to us that they are opposed to us relocating this whale and we do understand that. But public safety really is the prime concern here."

Luna appeared in the sound three years ago, healthy but alone. Officials decided to leave him there as he was hunting and growing normally.

But the whale became intrigued by the people of Gold River who frequented the dock to see him. He developed a taste for pushing boats around, scratching himself with boat propellers and popping up to peer at people and dogs.

People didn't help.

One person tried to brush his teeth. Another tried to pour beer down his blowhole.

At almost five years old and four tonnes, Luna has become a nuisance and a potential danger. Earlier this month, he surfaced in the path of a landing float plane.

Officials planned Wednesday to use a boat that Luna is particularly fond of to lead him into a net pen. For seven days, he is to undergo medical tests. If he passes, he will be coaxed into a sling, crane-lifted into a container, placed on the back of a transport truck and then driven 350 kilometres south to a bay near Victoria.

Once there, he'll be held in another net pen until his pod swims by. He'll be released and officials will cross their fingers in hopes he sets out to meet his family.

It is a federal crime to interact with a whale, but Joyce said any decision about laying charges against the aboriginal paddlers would be left up to Fisheries' enforcement branch.

"At this point, we're trying to be very sensitive. This whale is very important, both spiritually and culturally to the First Nations."

Joyce said officials are also concerned about the people in the canoes.

"This is a large whale. They've got some small canoes so safety is an issue."

She said it's important that Luna be kept wild. Contact with anyone, including the aboriginal paddlers, could eventually threaten the young orca.

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