Posted on 03/11/2006 11:37:50 AM PST by proudpapa
"...The next minute, Luna was sucked into a tube containing a propeller powered by a 1,700-horsepower engine. It chopped the whale into bits."
However, a lot of money, too much money, was spent trying to rescue this whale a few years back.
Money that could've been used more wisely, to benefit humans.
Sushi!
Looks like a secret leaked from Harry Potter Book 7.
Reincarnated sushi.
BC indians interferred as the local chief said it was his father or grand father reincarnate
We should curse the idiot modern stone age indians for killing this whale.
“This is the Katrina of orca advocacy,” Harris said. “We saw a perfect storm gathering and they sat around and did nothing, and now we’ve got a dead whale! It’s incredibly tragic and frustrating.”
Senator Maria Cantwell, NOAA Fisheries, US Navy, and WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife partner to help Luna
Today Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, Northwest Regional Director of NOAA Fisheries Bob Lohn and WA DFW Director Jeff Koenings held a joint news conference to announce their combined effort to partner with Canadian Fisheries officials to bring Luna back to his family, L pod of the Southern Resident orca community. Lohn announced that $100,000 may be available immediately, with more funding likely after an appropriations bill is passed in Congress, possibly in two to three weeks. Sen. Cantwell also revealed that the Navy would participate in the project by helping with tagging and tracking, and may help monitor the Southern Residents year-round.
This development amounts to a breakthrough that may finally get some movement to transport Luna to where he’ll hear his family in their normal travels in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and he’ll have a chance to call to them and be heard. There is no record of a Southern Resident family member being rejected, and there is no reason to think that Luna will have forgotten his mom or his other relatives, or that they will have forgotten him. The reunion should go fairly smoothly, even if it takes a few days, providing Luna is promptly placed in an exposed location like Pedder Bay, and is allowed to go free as soon as there is an obvious vocal connection between him and his family. The precedent is of course the release of the two-year-old orphan orca Springer when she connected with her family and seemed eager to go with them.
Senator Cantwell has taken a creative and important step to partner with NOAA Fisheries, US Navy and WA DFW to jointly offer assistance to DFO in their efforts to bring about Luna’s reunion. This cross-agency, cross-border collaboration is a testament to the widespread public appeal among the human residents around Puget Sound, the Northwest Straits, the Gulf Islands and Georgia Strait, and beyond to help Luna and in so doing help restore his family.
We applaud DFO's earlier decision to intervene and bring Luna back to his home waters this fall or winter. This is the perfect time for a reintroduction - his pod is still around, and it is the time of year where they travel throughout the sound, so are not in one place for any length of time (as opposed to the summer months when they can almost always be found off the west side of San Juan Island). This decreases the chance for Luna to become habituated to one marina or location, and makes it difficult for people to converge upon Luna or his pod; and there are less recreational boaters out and about this time of year as well.
Moving Luna now would give him time to readjust to life with his pod before they take off for the winter months. Waiting until next spring would not only endanger Luna's life through the winter, but would make the reintroduction more risky by placing him back with his pod when they are most subject to interaction with humans and boats.
There are also several compelling scientific purposes served by reuniting Luna with his family. If he is radio-tagged his travels, and therefore his family’s unknown winter itineraries, can be far better understood, which directly informs efforts to protect and restore the whales’ habitats and prey sources. Considering the Southern Residents have been listed as “endangered” by Canada, and as “depleted” by NOAA Fisheries, and are in the process of being listed as “endangered” by the WA DFW, such critical information is invaluable.
As Bob Lohn pointed out in the press conference, there are further potential gains in scientific understanding to come from the project. Luna’s reunion may help show whether “orcas that have been accustomed to human contact can return to a condition where they don’t continue to seek human contact.” This could be important information for the prospect of returning the other “missing” L pod member, “Lolita”, who has been on display at the Miami Seaquarium since 1970.
In other words, Luna will help answer whether there is still a strong bond between him and his family and whether they will teach him to “just say no” to humans even in the presence of boats. Springer demonstrated all that and more, and presumably her resoundingly happy reunion with her family is contributing to the public’s confidence in Luna’s ability to resume a normal orca lifestyle.
The lifelong family bonds found among both male and female Resident orcas of the Southern and Northern communities are unprecedented in the annals of animal behavior, so it’s not surprising that public figures in the US and Canada are reluctant to base a high-profile rescue operation on the prospects that the lost juvenile will fully reintegrate with his family. We couldn’t expect that for virtually any land mammal save humans. But orcas are a special case. Luna, like Springer, can show people that orcas possess qualities we thought were limited to us.
###
October 15, 2003 (Vancouver Province) The Vancouver Aquarium today will announce a proposal to help reunite Luna, the orphaned orca whale, with its family pod.
But aquarium spokeswoman Angela Nielsen said that so far, a "proactive" fundraising push has only raised $2,400 toward a rescue that could cost as much as $600,000.
Hurricane, boat propeller, same thing.
/s
That was funny, and you better get your flame retardant underwear on. LOL!
Did any of those bits look big enough to grill?
I found this letter from
http://www.orcanetwork.org/news/lunaforum.html
almost prophetic. Enjoy:
..."Now we've got the Luna lunatics who've figured a way to defraud the gullible out of their money so they can fund a lifestyle that the hungry, homeless, and poverty stricken would kill for. And in aid of what? A g**damn fish!! These people don't give a damn about whales or the environment. Not really. This is simply another project the counterfeiters of society have devised in order to avoid contributing a productive day's work to the very society they're duping.
But there is a bright side. You can almost count on a pissed off fisherman shooting this thing and ending this phase of the seemingly endless parade of environmentalist parasites who commit this fraud in the name of "saving the planet".
Bud
Coquitlam, BC
Yeah, it used to be that these whackos equated each animal life with a single human life. Now it's a 1:1400 ratio.
Isn't killing a whale a capital offense in Washington?
"...The next minute, Luna was sucked into a tube containing a propeller powered by a 1,700-horsepower engine. It chopped the whale into bits."
"But aquarium spokeswoman Angela Nielsen said that so far, a "proactive" fundraising push has only raised $2,400 toward a rescue that could cost as much as $600,000."
Sorry Dude, The people have spoken. If they dont think it is that important to shed their own money, why should nayone else?
"mmm, that's great orca!"
Heads up, tuna!
Here comes Luna.
I've heard from whale eaters that it's actually lean red meat.
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