A New Year For Luna

Sunday, January 1, 2006
GOLD RIVER, BC — The turn of the year gives us humans pause to reflect on past and future – which we’ll get to in a minute with some unexpected numbers -- but Luna just plunges ahead and does what he’s always done: dining lavishly and visiting friends.

In the last couple of days Luna has spent most of his time on the former pursuit, foraging in his familiar territory. His social life appears to have been largely focused on breaking the ice, so to speak, with an 83-metre Canadian Coast Guard light icebreaker that came into the area for a couple of days. On December 30 he joined up with the ship as it arrived and anchored, and crew members reported that he stayed in the ship’s vicinity until about midnight. On New Year’s Eve we saw Luna back in the middle of the bay as darkness brought on the end of 2005.

Before that, though, Luna had a big day just before Christmas when an old friend, a large tug, came in with a barge and loaded logs nearby. Luna spent the whole night with the barge and associated tugs and dozer boats as they shepherded bundles of logs around and loaded them up, working hard to get all crews home for Christmas.

We were away for a few days after that, and spent some of our time going through notes of our observations over the past year. They turn up unexpected information that may have a bearing on future plans for Luna.

We recorded a total of 679 hours of observation from late April of 2005 to the end of the year, spread out over 58 days. During that time Luna interacted with people and boats for 282 hours. This included a total of 110 separate interactions. (We counted interactions with one boat as a single interaction, even if it lasted all day.) On average, this came out to 4.86 hours of interaction each calendar day that we were out there. Perhaps more importantly, when we looked at the time spent watching Luna compared to the amount of interaction that was going on during the actual observation periods, the percentage of observed time that he spent interacting was amazing. It was over 41 percent.

How those interactions were started is even more interesting. We broke them down into three categories: Interactions Luna initiated himself, by pursuing boats that weren’t seeking him; interactions initiated by members of the public actively trying to connect with him; and interactions initiated by either DFO or stewardship boats.

Here’s the total: Of those 110 interactions, 90 of them, or almost 82 percent, were initiated by Luna. The public started fewer than four percent, and stewards initiated about 14 percent.

We were on the water far less than 100 percent of the time, and we have not yet seen the figures that will be compiled by the First Nation’s Kakawin Guardians based on their stewardship. But our numbers are not ambiguous. They make the situation fairly clear:

1. Luna is highly habituated to people.
2. Education and enforcement have dissuaded most people from intentionally trying to interact with Luna.
3. However, Luna interacts abundantly, on his own initiative, with vessels that are unable to elude him such as slow-moving tugs, larger boats and ships, canoes and kayaks, or fishing boats with gear in the water.
4. Therefore, any plan to help Luna survive and get along with the many other users of Nootka Sound until a reunion occurs cannot depend on a form of stewardship designed primarily to prevent interaction.

Summer will be here sooner than we think. Luna and the people of Nootka Sound need a plan before the many boats return. What to do?

Our numbers may provide a clue. Trying to stifle Luna’s sociability simply doesn’t work. We have to learn how to respect it.

Each time we go out on the water, and see that small black fin in the distance, and watch a blast of breath rising against the forests, and hear a call coming through the hydrophone, we are filled with joy that Luna is alive. Lonely or not, this young whale holds onto life with what clearly looks like determination and exuberance. From a species that depends on family, he is bereft of family. But he’s a survivor, and he makes the best of it. We cannot help but be in awe. His life is worth accepting, celebrating, and saving.

Surely all those who care about Luna, and even those who fear him, can come up with some solution that will respect the social instincts that we share with Luna rather than trying to smother them. Perhaps we can help make the coming summer something to look forward to, rather than to dread.

Happy New Year to all of you, and to our mutual loved one, Luna.

Source: ReuniteLuna.com

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