Orphaned orca swims in and out of net pen

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GOLD RIVER, B.C. — Luna the killer whale last evening happily swam in and out of a net pen prepared for his capture and relocation, then swam off to join some nearby Indians paddling traditional canoes.

Fisheries officials hope to move the overly friendly young whale from Nootka Sound on the west side of Vancouver Island to a reunion with his pod.

Officers on an inflatable police boat looked on as the orca moved about 500 yards from where he'd been playing just outside the pen.

Federal fisheries and Vancouver Aquarium officials eventually called off their efforts for the night, but said they would start again today.

"We're getting reports every day that his family is swimming past the mouth of Pedder Bay," Clint Wright, aquarium-operations vice president, said of the area where scientists hope to reunite Luna with his pod.

Wright said the crew allowed about 10 days for the capture and has used about half of that.

Fisheries and aquarium officials had held back from closing the gate to the pen to try to make sure Luna was comfortable.

"Right now we're just working with him to get him used to the idea of swimming around with the boats and coming in and swimming into the net pen," Marilyn Joyce of the federal fisheries department said about an hour before Luna bolted.

The orca, born into Washington state's L-pod, has been living in these waters since 2001, after he became separated from his family. As the whale grows, authorities say his coziness with humans poses a risk to boats and float planes.

Since the capture effort started last week, Luna has moved back and forth, attracted both by the boats of those who want to catch him and local Indians in canoes who want him to stay here.

Some of the Indians believe Luna is a reincarnation of a dead chief.

Both scientists and members of the Mowachaht-Muchalaht band of Indians were on the water at first light yesterday.

Members of the band say Luna turned up here a few days after the 2001 death of their chief, Ambrose Maquinna, who had said he hoped to return as a killer whale.

The Indians pound paddles on the bottom of their canoes, sing and pet Luna when he approaches.

"Hopefully, he's made the choice to come with us, rather than be led into a pen," the Indian band's current chief, Mike Maquinna, said last night. "We've been blessed and honored in his presence and that he's (decided) to come with us. Obviously, we are not going to stay here, we are going to head out in the opposite direction of the holding pen."

Joyce said the whale has learned that "when he hears banging in canoes, he gets a lot of attention from people and it's not the kind of attention that's good for him.

"In the long run, this is really going to compromise his success at being a wild whale."