Farewell to Luna

Most people probably don't know anything about Luna, the orca, but he's been in the news off and on for about five years around here. Poor little guy got in the middle of human politics and paid the price He was born in the summer of 2000 to a pod of whales that lives off of Vancouver Island in Canada. At that point, he didn't have a name that humans could pronounce. The scientists who study whale pods called him L98 in their records.

When he was about a year old, he got separated from his family. It seems that he was a very curious little fella and liked following the boats that travel around Nootka Sound. He stayed in the Sound while the rest of the family went back to their normal hunting grounds in US waters. The humans who enjoyed his company called him "Luna."

The next year, while Luna was still wandering around Nootka Sound, another young whale called "Springer" was separated from her pod. Her family was usually in Canadian waters, but she somehow strayed into Puget Sound. Orcas are very sociable animals and without her own kind to interact with, she sought out other mammals who just happened to be traveling in motorboats and ferries. She was quite a tourist attraction, but everyone knew that it would be best for her to go back to her family. So money was raised and scientists arranged to capture her and take her back to her home pod. It wasn't certain that she would be accepted back into the pod after having been away from them, but she was accepted and was still with them as of last fall.

Meanwhile, Luna was still in Nootka Sound, growing like a whale and interacting more and more with people. In May 2003, a woman was fined for touching Luna, which is against the law in Canada. (Similar laws exist in the US. Both are designed as protection for the animals.) In September of that same year, the Canadian authorities started to consider capturing Luna, spurred both by the success with Springer and an incident where Luna nearly caused a crash of a float plane that was landing.

Plans for relocation were announced, but then members of the local First Nations band stepped in and said that Luna was the reincarnation of a chief of theirs who had died and they wanted him to stay. Still, a joint Canadian/US effort was launched, money was raised and things were set into motion. In June 2004, the plan was put into effect, but the First Nations members lured Luna away from the scientists, and the plan had to be abandoned. The First Nations people were jubilant at their success.

Yesterday morning, still in Nootka Sound, a considerably larger Luna decided to be friendly with a tug boat. He swam too near the propellers and was killed. I wonder how jubilant those First Nations folk are now.

There are those who say that it's just the way things are and that the scientists shouldn't intervene in nature. I would agree if it wasn't humans who likely caused Luna to stray in the first place and if it wasn't humans who have caused the numbers of orcas to dwindle so dramatically.

I've seen people on the news say that it was the Canadian fisheries department who is to blame because they didn't consult with the First Nations before making a decision. Possibly that would have been preferable, but is the pride of the First Nations more important than the life of a creature they claim to revere? If what they say is true, then Luna is merely a victim of human politics, which is one of the saddest things I can think of.