Subject:  Orphaned orca whale captured in Puget Sound!@$#%$$!!! :) |
Author:
The Veeckster
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Date Posted: 19:34:53 06/13/02 Thu
Author Host/IP: 205.187.131.1
I hope the little orca gets a clean bill of health and gets to see her family! :)
Orphaned orca whale captured in Puget Sound
Experts hope to reunite her with her family
June 13, 2002 Posted: 5:57 PM EDT (2157 GMT)
A juvenile orca whale approaches a boat during a practice run to rescue her in the waters off Seattle on Wednesday.
OFF VASHON ISLAND, Washington (AP) -- Divers captured a 2,000-pound orphaned orca in Puget Sound on Thursday, beginning a weekslong effort to reunite the young whale with her family.
The lost killer whale, originally from a pod in Canada, has been alone since January off the north end of this island, southwest of Seattle.
Her eagerness for company had convinced scientists that she could not safely remain in Puget Sound, where she could be injured by a propeller or inadvertently damage a small boat.
The 11-foot-long orca was guided by snorkelers and rescue boats into a sling and then hoisted by crane onto a 65-foot boat. A thick foam pad was placed on the boat's deck for the whale and ice was on hand to keep her cool as temperatures neared 90 degrees. She offered no resistance.
The effort was overseen by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which planned to temporarily hold the orca in a 1,000-square-foot pen at its Kitsap Peninsula research station west of Seattle.
The orca will be treated -- she is known to have worms and an itchy skin condition -- before being taken north for release near Canada's Vancouver Island.
There, she was to be held in a netted-off cove until her family, known as A-pod, returns in late June or early July. The whale, estimated to be about two years old, apparently became separated from them after her mother died last year.
The young whale's plight has captured the imagination of residents in Puget Sound, where the orca has long been a cherished icon. Local newspapers and TV stations have showered her with front-page attention.
NMFS Regional Administrator Bob Lohn said the reunion effort is expected to cost at least $200,000. Animal rights activists announced a fund-raising campaign Wednesday, saying the rescue could cost up to $500,000.
Orcas, often called killer whales, are a species of dolphin. The number of whales in Washington state's three resident pods has dropped from 98 in 1995 to 78 today. The government is to decide this summer whether to list the orcas as an endangered species.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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