Ecology and the Rainforest - Preservation or Destruction?

Whale of a Tale
When Luna, a people-loving orca, chose Vancouver Island's Nootka Sound for his home, he set in motion a drama of leviathan proportions

When a male orca born in 1999 was missing from the 2001 census of his family group that spends summers in the waters between Washington State and Canada's Vancouver Island, scientists assumed he was dead. They were wrong. The killer whale (actually a member of the dolphin family) suddenly appeared in Nootka Sound halfway up the west side of Vancouver Island, and soon Luna, as he was nicknamed, had a new family group, the boaters and fishermen of the Sound.

Orcas are extraordinarily social, and Luna became increasingly bold. He cavorted in the wake of ships, played fetch and tug-of-war with a boat fender, and even let people rub his tongue when he put his head up on the gunwales of their boats. People fell in love. "You really get moved by them," said Lisa Larsson, a researcher who studies whale sounds. "You don't really know how, but it just touches you inside somehow."

But human interaction with whales can be dangerous for them and for us and Luna's antics were causing damage to boats. The Canadian fisheries department decided that the animal should be captured and moved to rejoin his orca group. This effort has been complicated by concerns of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation band, who identify with the whale and are afraid that he will be harmed by the capture.

Author Michael Parfit moved to Nootka Sound to report on the unfolding drama, and introduces the diverse cast of characters including Luna, whom he calls a "charmer, a rogue, a goofball, a rambunctious kid."

To read the full text, click here:
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues04/nov04/luna.html