Luna, the juvenile killer whale from Washington state waters who got lost in Canada’s Nootka Sound five years ago, apparently died Friday when he was accidentally struck by a tugboat propeller, Canadian authorities said.
Luna, known to scientists as L-98 and a member of one of Washington’s three resident orca pods, or family groups, wandered into Nootka Sound on the west side of Vancouver Island in 2001 and stayed, worrying activists and annoying boaters and seaplane pilots with his friendly curiosity.
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Luna was about 6 years old. Orca life stages roughly parallel those of humans, so he was the killer-whale equivalent of a young child.
“The whale has always flirted with this kind of danger,” said Fred Felleman of Ocean Advocates in Seattle, who had pressed for more efforts to reunite Luna with his family. “It was like that old children’s cartoon, ‘Are you my mother?’ Orcas are very social animals, and this was the only way to get his social needs met.”
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Lonely and apparently seeking contact, the whale had damaged and disabled several boats over the years. Lately, he had been gathering scars from increasingly frequent close calls with propellers, but apparently no serious injuries.
Canada tried in 2004 to reunite him with his pod in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which separates Washington state from Vancouver Island.
That effort was scrapped when local Indians lured Luna away from the net pen intended to snare him. The Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation believed the orca embodied the spirit of their dead chief, Ambrose Maquinna, and did not want him forcibly removed.