A two-year-old orca has been circling a Canadian lagoon for days, refusing to leave the area where its mother died on the shore.
The young whale‘s mother, named Spong, passed away after she became trapped in the shallow waters off the west coast of Vancouver.
Wildlife officials and scientists are now in a race against time to move the young orca out of the lagoon and back out to sea before it succumbs to starvation.
But these mammals usually stay with their moms their entire lives, so it is unknown if the two-year-old will ever leave its mother’s resting place.
Marine mammal rescue officials, leaders of the First Nations tribes, scientists and volunteers said they are doing all they can to save the baby.
The First Nations tribe which is part of the local community and named the calf kʷiisaḥiʔis (pronounced kwee-sahay-is) which means ‘Brave Little Hunter’ and team efforts are underway to find the calf’s pod and coax it out of the lagoon.
The community has been tirelessly working to save the baby orca since Saturday morning when a call came in from a road maintenance employee who had noticed a beached whale.
It isn’t clear why the mother and her calf entered the lagoon, but experts believe it was due to a mistimed attack that left her wedged in a depression on the shore.
As the lagoon’s tide went out, Spong remained on her side, struggling to move and although rescue teams tried to roll her onto her belly and douse her with water, at 10:45am – two hours after she was spotted – she died.
And during the post-mortem, experts found that she was also pregnant.
‘It was absolutely horrible, especially because we knew the tide was against us from the start,’ Glen McCall of Totem Excavating who received the call told The Guardian.
‘We didn’t have enough manpower,’ he said. ‘It just wasn’t enough.’
Rescuers have tried to lure kʷiisaḥiʔis out of the lagoon using acoustic orca calls that mimicked the sounds of the calf’s pod.
They are also utilizing oikomi pipes, which are made out of metal that reverberates in the water and are used to herd whales, typically around oil spills.
Despite rescuers’ best efforts to get kʷiisaḥiʔis back out to sea, she has instead retreated further into the lagoon.
‘Whales are connected for a lifetime with their family,’ Janie Wray, CEO and lead researcher for BC Whales told The Guardian.
‘And I just can’t stop thinking about what that calf is going through because the calf doesn’t understand why its mother is not any longer there for her.
‘If that happened to one of us, you can just imagine what we would be going through.
‘I really do believe that little calf is going through something very, very similar right now.’
The rescue efforts have been made more difficult by the fact that the water only rises high enough for 30 minutes each day to facilitate the young orca’s escape and the teams are hesitant to give her food because she may end up relying on humans.
‘The reality is, that helping the whale feed could result a relationship with humans that would be hard to break,’ Ehattesaht First Nation chief, Simon John told reporters.
‘But my real concern is the whale gets out of the lagoon safely and reaches its pod.’
They are using recordings of the calf’s aunt, Big Momma, so kʷiisaḥiʔis can find its way to the family pod – a method that has been successful in the past, according to the Times Colonist.
The calf appeared to be in good health but is still resisting all efforts to leave her mother, according to Bay Cetology, a conservation agency.
‘Despite our best approaches the little one has shown us it is not ready to go,’ Bay Cetology said in a Facebook post.
‘After a long discussion with Ehattesaht and Nuchatlaht First Nations and DFO on site last night the collective approach for now is to grieve with the little one and circle back with fresh ideas and spirit soon. No one is about to give up on kʷiisaḥiʔis.’
Ehattesaht First Nation tribe members performed a ceremony to release Spong’s spirit by draping cedar boughs over her body and telling stories of the Nuu-chah-nulth people that weaves a tale of a whale that comes on land and transforms into a wolf, before turning into a human.
‘It is really important to remember that we are connected to these animals,’ John, told The Guardian.
‘Being so close and touching her, seeing her calf and being so helpless is hard to describe.’
This article by Nikki Main was first published by The Daily Mail on 29 March 2024. Lead Image: A two-year-old orca has been circling a Canadian lagoon for days, refusing to leave the area where its mother died on the shore.
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