A rescue team working to remove a stranded orca calf from a lagoon off northern Vancouver Island is prepared to change tactics to save its life, including potentially pulling the orca into open water, a report says. marine mammal coordinator of the Department of Fisheries. .
Paul Cottrell said Wednesday that all contingencies will be considered in the coming days after efforts by a team of experts and First Nations members failed to get the two-year-old boy to leave the lagoon.
He said they will not rule out placing the orca in a sling-type device and hoisting it into the open sea.
“We are thinking beyond whether we have to change tactics, depending on the health of the calf in the future,” Cottrell said at a news conference with Ehattesaht First Nation Chief Simon John in Zeballos, located more than 450 kilometers north of Victoria.
Several attempts have been made to get the calf to leave the area after its pregnant mother died in the lagoon on Saturday when she was stranded by low tide.
Attempts to use recorded killer whale vocalizations to convince the calf to leave the lagoon have been unsuccessful.
“We are looking at all contingencies and contingencies ahead,” Cottrell said. “As you can imagine, this is a very short window of time that we have, so we have to look at all of those options and think ahead in case we have to consider those later options, which is certainly in progress.”
What people are reading
John said he hopes rescue team members will resume their efforts Thursday to help the calf reach the open ocean, where it is expected to be reunited with its family members.
“My real concern is that the whale leaves the lagoon safely and reaches its pod,” he said. “That’s where the real collaborative effort is. We’re really trying to get to that point to get it out of there.”
British Columbia’s orca calf rescue team considers changing tactics to save stranded whale: DFO. #BC #BiggsKillerWhale #OrcaCalf
John said the lagoon area is known locally as Little Thorny and is considered prime waters for seal and killer whale hunting.
A necropsy of the mother orca, a 15-year-old Bigg’s orca, showed she was pregnant with a female fetus when she died.
Cottrell said the pregnancy may have contributed to the mother’s death, as she was unable to leave the beach when she became stranded despite help from local residents.
“The effort was incredible and just an unfortunate situation,” Cottrell said, adding that the mother orca could have weighed between eight and 10 tons.
The lagoon poses access challenges, especially for an orca calf left alone without its mother to act as a guide in and out of the area, he said.
“It’s almost like threading the needle,” Cottrell said of the lagoon’s entry and exit, which includes short optimal tide times and complicated currents.
John said members of the nation have been searching for the calf’s family in open water and have given the young calf a name: kwiisahi?is, which means brave little hunter.
He said First Nations members held a ceremony to honor the mother orca.
“We tried to release the spirit of the whale with a ceremony.”
John previously said that orcas have an important connection to the culture of the Ehattesaht First Nation, where their stories say that “the orca came to land and changed into a wolf and then the wolf changed into a man.”
By Dirk Meissner in Victoria
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 27, 2024.