In the end, the wayward orca Luna died as he had lived and become well-known — alone. And lonely.
The young killer whale that somehow got separated from his whale family in the back bays of Vancouver Island died Friday in a grisly collision with a tugboat's propeller.
The death of a whale that attracted thousands of tourists — some from overseas — sparked anew arguments over whether Canadian officials and native leaders mishandled the situation.
One minute Luna was frolicking around the back of a boat, as he did routinely in an attempt to secure the companionship he craved.
The next minute, he was sucked into a tube containing a propeller powered by a 1,700-horsepower engine. It chopped the whale into bits. Until authorities recovered a large piece of the carcass, they were unsure they would even be able to positively identify the creature.
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"I'm furious!" said Michael Harris of the Orca Conservancy, the Seattle-based group that had consistently argued that the whale should be recaptured and returned to his whale family, known as L pod, which frequents the waters around the San Juan Islands.
"This is the Katrina of orca advocacy," Harris said. "We saw a perfect storm gathering, and they sat around and did nothing, and now we've got a dead whale. It's incredibly tragic and frustrating."
Luna's sad saga first came to light in spring 2001, when he turned up in Nootka Sound, a remote waterway that snakes inland from the Pacific to the old logging town of Gold River, B.C. His pod is known to forage in the waters off Vancouver Island in the spring.
When the Ls returned to Puget Sound without Luna and an older male, his uncle, conservationists speculated that the two may have been hunting together when the elderly uncle died. Others wondered if Luna had been purposely shunned by his pod. There's no way to know the truth.
Orcas enjoy a lifespan comparable to that of humans. Scientists who study orcas say the 1-year-old calf being left alone was not unlike a human infant suddenly isolated in the woods. Fortunately, though, Luna was able to catch his own dinner.
At first, Luna stayed about halfway up Nootka Sound, avoiding boats as a normal orca would. But after a time, he began to follow vessels. He had his favorites. Orcas love to splash in the water together, to rub each other, and they enjoy close family bonds. Luna bonded with boats.
Then he started soliciting petting by humans. Eventually, Luna's search for intimacy grew disruptive.
He was known to push around 30-foot logs for onlookers' entertainment, carry twigs on his head, jump out of the water next to boats and push boats around with his nose. In one incident, he momentarily lifted a kayaker out of the water far enough that she was temporarily trapped. Later, he damaged some boats.
With help offered by U.S. officials and conservationists on both sides of the border, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans came up with a plan to capture Luna and transport him back to be with his family. But a dispute with .the local natives, or First Nations as they're known in Canada, kept that from happening, and an alternate plan had not yet been put in place.
