Effort to rescue killer whale calf put on hold
Chief says team is `standing down' after futile first attempt to coax it out of lagoon
An orphaned killer whale stranded in a remote Vancouver Island lagoon is proving difficult for rescuers to catch.
An official at the site Friday said the capture operation is in the “demobilization stage” after an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the two-year-old orca that began before dawn.
Ehattesaht First Nation Chief Simon John says they plan to try again in a couple of days, saying rescuers were “standing down.”
The First Nation said earlier that the rescue was launched at 5 a.m. because of favourable weather conditions.
The two-year-old calf has been alone in Little Espinosa Inlet after its pregnant mother was beached at low tide and died on March 23.
The pair got into the lagoon by swimming through a narrow and fast-moving channel connecting it to the ocean.
Efforts to persuade the calf to swim back through the shallow channel proved futile. Road access to the lagoon was blocked by members of the Ehattesaht First Nation during Friday's attempt.
Earlier this week, federal officials said a team of about two dozen people had assembled to prepare the planned landing area for the complex rescue, with staff and members of the First Nation playing key roles.
Equipment had been arriving daily in the community of about 200 people, more than 450 kilometres northwest of Victoria.
The plan involves corralling the female calf into a shallow part of the three-kilometre lagoon using boats, divers and a net more than 270 metres long to prevent the whale from moving back into deeper water. It would then be placed into a large fabric sling and hoisted onto a transport vehicle.
A large truck with a flat bed and a wooden structure that appears to be designed to carry the whale to open water was seen in the area on Thursday.
The department previously discussed initially holding the young orca in an ocean net pen until freeing it when members of the mother's family were nearby, but now it says the orca will be released directly into open water where it's thought it is most likely to encounter its family pod.
The Ehattesaht First Nation — which John has said considers the rescue a pivotal moment in its modern history — has been listening to the calf's cries through a hydrophone. A statement by the nation earlier this week said its calls “make you almost weep, they seem so filled with longing.”