This story reads like a movie script:
GOLD RIVER, B.C. — Seventeen men and women of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation in dugout canoes patted a rambunctiously friendly young killer whale and led him out to sea yesterday, trying to thwart the capture of the orca they consider a reincarnation of a deceased chief.
By midafternoon, when veterinarians and scientists were scheduled to begin the first part of the plan to reunite Luna with his U.S. pod, the whale was already about 12 miles away from the pen where he was supposed to spend the next week.
Luna playfully followed the canoes. Videotape shows him swimming alongside the paddlers, 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 capture of this lone orca has been one of the top regional radio news stories for days. The cost was expected to be in the millions. I wonder what will happen next.
note: illustration from Bainbridge Island’s Battle Point Park
