Indians and scientists clash over ‘reincarnated’ killer whale

CANADIAN scientists and Indians are competing in boats for the affections of a dangerously friendly killer whale off Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

A day after a pair of Indian canoes led him out to sea, Luna the overly-friendly Orca followed a government inflatable boat but not long enough to set in motion an effort to reunite him with his family.

The killer whale eventually broke away, probably to look for food, said marine mammal co-ordinator for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Marilyn Joyce.

Scientists hope to capture the five-year-old Orca and eventually reunite him with his US family, L-Pod. After Luna swam away from the fisheries boat, officials were unsure when a renewed effort would be made.

Indians in Nootka Sound, some of whom believe the whale is the reincarnation of a tribal chief, want him to remain in the remote inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Videotape shot on Thursday showed Luna ploughing along behind the inflatable boat toward a floating net pen. In hot pursuit, members of the Mowachaht- Muchalaht tribe paddled canoes and sang to try to lure Luna away from the pen.

“Our singers are very willing to sing as long as it takes. They’ll just have to sing louder,” said Mike Maquinna, grand chief of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht.

“Some people see it as a protest. We don’t. It’s just some people getting in canoes and singing some songs and a whale happens to be about. We’ve done this for thousands of years,” he said.

The Canadian fisheries department and the Vancouver Aquarium want to move Luna to an inlet near Victoria, about 200 miles to the south, because the whale has become too friendly with people and boats in this small community and has become a danger.

It would be the first step toward reuniting Luna with his family, which spends summers in the waters around southern Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands of Washington state.

The Indians agree Luna has become too dependent on people, but many believe the spirit of their late chief inhabits the whale. Luna turned up in Nootka Sound in 2001, days after the chief made a deathbed wish for his spirit to live in an Orca.

Mowachaht chief Jerry Jack, one of those in the dugout canoes, told Canadian Press the Indians originally planned to direct Luna to a cove and keep him there until the end of summer, when the chance to reunite him with his pod would have passed.

Under the plan of government and aquarium officials, Luna would be led into the net pen by the inflatable boat and spend a week getting medical tests.