A female killer whale that beached on northern Vancouver Island died on Saturday despite efforts by the community to push the mammal back into the water.
Video of the incident, which occurred near the village of Zeballos on the island’s northwest coast, shows dozens of people trying to save the stranded orca.
The female orca was stranded on shore in Little Espinosa Inlet, about six kilometres southwest of the village, at low tide while a calf swam nearby, said Florence Bruce of the Ehattesaht First Nation.
Intense efforts are underway to reunite the orca calf with its family.
Bruce and her fiancé, Kyle Harry, were among a dozen or so people present for the rescue effort.
“The whale was giving a really big fight before it passed away,” Bruce told CBC News.
The group tried to roll the mammal onto its belly and provide it with as much water as they could for about two hours before it breathed its last breath, Bruce said.
“I am so sad inside. It’s kind of like I lost a relative,” she said.
Harry sang a prayer song for the departed orca.
“Other nations are also coming together on Facebook Live and singing their songs for [the orca] too,” he said.
While the circumstances around the stranding remain unclear, Marine Education and Research Society (MERS) — a conservation charity based in Port McNeill — speculates the orca may have ventured ashore during a high tide, possibly for hunting purposes.
In a social media post, the society said the area where the incident took place “is highly influenced by changes in tides.”
“When the tide ebbs in this particular spot, it happens very quickly,” the society wrote.
The calf, which remained near its deceased mother, faces an uncertain future.
In its post, MERS said its survival depends on various factors including its age and “the family structure of these whales.”
Search continues to reunite baby orca with pod
The Fisheries Department says in a statement that a highly complex operation is underway to entice the juvenile whale in the lagoon to rejoin its pod, but “time is of the essence.”
Following its mother’s death, the calf stayed nearby, but the department says the whale needs to make its way to the open ocean to find its family pod.
The race to save an orca calf is underway off Northern Vancouver Island. The calf’s mother became beached Saturday and drowned, despite an effort to save her. Stephanie Mercier reports.
Marine mammal rescue officials in the department, area First Nations leaders, scientists and volunteers are all in the area to help save the calf, which is about two years old.
A Facebook post from Judae Smith, who oversees operations and maintenance in the Nuchatlaht First Nation’s fisheries department, says they are also looking for the pod of killer whales.
“We have six [boats] going out to look to bring the baby to the pod,” Smith posted on Facebook Saturday.
MERS said in a social media post that the dead animal has been identified as a 15-year-old Bigg’s killer whale, given the designation of T109A3, and she had a calf in 2022.
Jared Towers, executive director of non-profit Bay Cetology, said they are planning to coax the calf out of the lagoon.
“Fortunately, it’s making a lot of loud calls and if it can swim out on its own at high tide … it can continue to call and hopefully find its extended family and be adopted.”
