Scientists attempt to reunite killer whale Springer with her family pod

WITH a young female killer whale safely returned to her home waters on Canada's Pacific coast, attention yesterday turned to how to reunite her with her family pod something scientists have never done before with a wild orca.

Two Native American canoes carrying signs that read "Welcome Home Baby Orca" were among the boats watching as the whale, officially called A-73 but nicknamed "Springer" was lowered into an offshore holding pen near the northern Vancouver Island hamlet of Telegraph Cove, British Columbia.

Scientists see the effort to reunite the whale, found orphaned near Seattle, with its pod as a three stage process that included nursing it back to health and transporting it 460 miles on board a high-speed catamaran boat.

"Here's to steps one and two. One more to go," Vancouver Aquarium president John Nightingale said, raising champagne in a toast once a crane had safely lowered the two-year-old whale into the water.

The orca became an international celebrity when she was discovered in January in a busy shipping channel in the US Puget Sound an area far from where her pod normally ventures. She was captured for medical treatment in May to prepare her for the trip.

Orcas normally spend their entire lives with their direct relatives, but it is believed A-73 either was accidentally separated from the pod or was rejected by it when her mother died last year.

Amid concern that she would become another victim at a time when the already small population of killer whales on the North American Pacific coast was declining, US and Canadian authorities agreed to capture and return her to Canada.

Biologists chose a small inlet off the Johnstone Strait near the resort and fishing hamlet of Telegraph Cove because it is an area where A-73's pod is known to spend the summer eating salmon.