Black_Apalachi
26-02-2010, 09:10 PM
I saw a documentary the other day and have done some wider reading about a killer whale called Luna and I have to say this is the most remarkable animal I have ever heard of. It turns out it's a pretty old story so you may have already heard about it. Basically it was separated from its pod when it was very young and ended up in the waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2001. Being alone, it longed for companionship and so often interacted with humans and their boats by swimming up to socialise with them and even sometimes pushing the bow of the boat away from the shore when people were trying to sail back :P
There was constant controversy over what should be done with the whale as it was seen by many as a threat to people as well as itself as it caused inconvenience to some people such as local fishermen and sometimes damaged people's boats. It turns out that the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people of northern Vancouver Island's late Chief had declared that when he died, he wished to return as an orca so they naturally believed this to be his reincarnation.
It wasn't until 2004 until the DFO finally began attempts to capture Luna to return him to his natural family. The first time they set out to capture him, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations members took to the water in traditional canoes and began singing to Luna as they believed he was their Chief and to their surprise, their singing lured him away from the capture boats. There were repeated attempts at capturing Luna over the next few days but by this time he was so used to human companionship that he evaded their attempts - even playing cat and mouse games with them allowing them to think they had almost caught him but ducking away at the last second!
In the end the inevitable happened; Lunar approached a tug boat but when he was behind it, the captain apparently put it into reverse. He was pulled into the propeller blades and killed on 10th March 2006. I don't know if this was a deliberate act or what, but overall I blame the DFO for doing too little, too late. Whether the whale's death was an accident or not, it already had visible scars from getting too close to propellers so it was only a matter of time before he ran into one big enough to seriously harm or kill him.
I just think it's pretty cool how a normally wild (and dangerous) animal was so tame and friendly and remained so, despite countless run-ins with unfriendly people and various dangers associated with humans. It didn't mean to cause any damage, it was just young and playful and wanted some companionship because after all, a killer whale is a social animal. Of course as usual, human ignorance led to the ultimate disaster.
The documentary I saw was on BBC called Saving Luna so you should be able to find it on iPlayer if you're interested. I just saw another interesting little video of him playing with a dog as well which you can see here! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNUlpDLuYUI) :D
There was constant controversy over what should be done with the whale as it was seen by many as a threat to people as well as itself as it caused inconvenience to some people such as local fishermen and sometimes damaged people's boats. It turns out that the Mowachaht/Muchalaht people of northern Vancouver Island's late Chief had declared that when he died, he wished to return as an orca so they naturally believed this to be his reincarnation.
It wasn't until 2004 until the DFO finally began attempts to capture Luna to return him to his natural family. The first time they set out to capture him, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nations members took to the water in traditional canoes and began singing to Luna as they believed he was their Chief and to their surprise, their singing lured him away from the capture boats. There were repeated attempts at capturing Luna over the next few days but by this time he was so used to human companionship that he evaded their attempts - even playing cat and mouse games with them allowing them to think they had almost caught him but ducking away at the last second!
In the end the inevitable happened; Lunar approached a tug boat but when he was behind it, the captain apparently put it into reverse. He was pulled into the propeller blades and killed on 10th March 2006. I don't know if this was a deliberate act or what, but overall I blame the DFO for doing too little, too late. Whether the whale's death was an accident or not, it already had visible scars from getting too close to propellers so it was only a matter of time before he ran into one big enough to seriously harm or kill him.
I just think it's pretty cool how a normally wild (and dangerous) animal was so tame and friendly and remained so, despite countless run-ins with unfriendly people and various dangers associated with humans. It didn't mean to cause any damage, it was just young and playful and wanted some companionship because after all, a killer whale is a social animal. Of course as usual, human ignorance led to the ultimate disaster.
The documentary I saw was on BBC called Saving Luna so you should be able to find it on iPlayer if you're interested. I just saw another interesting little video of him playing with a dog as well which you can see here! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNUlpDLuYUI) :D