Tribe leads whale away from pen

GOLD RIVER, British Columbia — Some local Indians in dugout canoes led a rambunctiously friendly young killer whale out to sea Wednesday, thwarting at least temporarily the planned relocation of the orca they consider a reincarnation of a deceased chief.

Seventeen 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 midafternoon Wednesday, when veterinarians and scientists were scheduled to begin the first part of the plan to reunite Luna with his U.S. pod, the 5-year-old whale was instead about 12 miles away from the net pen where he was supposed to spend the next week.

Officials with the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans denied the protest was responsible for delaying the launch of their plan. However, they did not attempt to lead the whale into a pen as scheduled.

Television videotape showed Luna playfully following the canoes — swimming alongside the paddlers and spinning over onto his back while some of the Indians patted his skin, rubbed his teeth and scratched his belly with hands and paddles.

The 14-foot-long whale appeared to nibble at their wrists.

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

Marilyn Joyce, marine mammal coordinator for the Fisheries Department, said late Wednesday she hopes to meet with Maquinna, but Luna’s relocation plan will proceed.

“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.”

The behavior Luna exhibited Wednesday with the paddlers is exactly what has led officials with the Fisheries Department and the Vancouver Aquarium to try to get him out of Nootka Sound.

Earlier this month, Luna surfaced in the path of a landing float plane.

The lonely young whale, now 5 years old, has become intrigued by the people of Gold River, who come down to 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.

Officials had planned to use a boat that Luna is particularly fond of to lead him into a net pen, where he would undergo medical tests. If he proves healthy, he would later be coaxed into a sling, crane-lifted into a container, placed on the back of a truck and then driven about 200 miles south to a bay near Victoria.

Once there, the plan called for him to be held in another net pen until his pod swims by. He would then be released and officials hope he would set out to meet his family.

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

Luna separated from his pod and arrived in Nootka Sound in 2001, about the same time as the chief died.

“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,” Maquinna said.

It is a federal crime to interact with a whale, but Joyce said any decision about taking action against the Indians would be left up to Fisheries’ enforcement branch.

“At this point, we’re trying to be very sensitive,” she said. “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,” she said. “They’ve got some small canoes so safety is an issue.”