Child couldn't find his way home

Published: Monday, March 13, 2006

Try to imagine a lost one-year-old child trying to find its family hundreds of kilometres away by itself. That's what Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Mowachaht/Muchalaht expected Luna to do from 2001 to 2006.

If the DFO had put the whale in that $300,000 net and towed him to Pedder Bay outside Victoria he would likely have rejoined L-pod and be alive today. The whale Springer successfully re-entered its whale group after being moved back to Johnson Strait. Luna probably would have done the same and helped repopulate his pod.

The southern resident killer whales are increasing in numbers even after the DFO oversaw the decimation of their food supply, salmon, the capture of some 50 animals for aquariums in the '60s and '70s and allowing fishermen to shoot them as they were eating our salmon.

Let's hope the DFO does not come down on whale watching companies, which have worked with these animals for more than 20 years without incident, and other members of the boating public who wish to see wild whales, in the mistaken belief that these people will cause harm to these animals.

These animals know about boats. They teach their young. Luna didn't get the lessons.

Chief Mike Maquinna states "It's a family loss." Quite right -- L-pod lost a valuable family member. Luna never was a First Nations member, he was an orca.

Bill Day,

whale watching captain,

Victoria.