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Too-familiar tale: Orca wants human playmates
Saturday, August 3, 2002
VICTORIA, B.C. -- It's the story of another isolated young killer whale becoming too friendly with boaters.
Like Springer, the orphan female orca moved from Puget Sound to her home waters off Vancouver Island last month, Luna has taken to swimming right up to boats to be touched and petted.
The 3-year-old male orca, apparently living on his own in Vancouver Island's Nootka Sound, cozied up to a kayak earlier this week in an apparent attempt to keep the craft from leaving the area, said Marc Pakenham, who helps coordinate Victoria's Marine Mammal Monitoring Project.
He said Luna is an orca calf that somehow become separated from his family and was first reported to be living on his own in Nootka Sound last fall.
The calf, known to scientists as L-98, was born in L-Pod, a group of "southern resident" orcas that frequent Washington state's inland waters.
He disappeared from his Washington home waters last summer.
His tendency to approach boats has developed in recent months, but his problem behaviors are not as entrenched as Springer's were, Pakenham said.
Luna appears to be eating well and looks pretty healthy, he said, but "it's just the habits that the calf is exhibiting right now that are worrisome."
Pakenham said steps should be taken to prevent Luna from becoming "a circus animal."
He has asked the federal Fisheries Department to send a special patrol boat to Nootka Sound, on Vancouver Island's northwest coast.
The idea is to approach boats near Luna's territory and let people know the implications of approaching him.
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