Western Canada: Rescuers of whale calf trapped in Vancouver Island lagoon look for family help

Good morning. Wendy Cox in Vancouver today.

A two-year-old whale calf would have done well to have listened to its great-aunt and followed her voice out of the lagoon it is trapped in and into the open ocean.

Instead, when the team of scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, along with members of the local Indigenous communities, played a recording of the vocalizations of the whale known to be the calf’s relative, the youngster “took off to the far end of the lagoon and hid in the shallows,” Paul Cottrell, Canada’s leading whale rescuer, told Justine Hunter in an interview Thursday.

Mr. Cottrell recounted that he had used the so-called “Pied Piper” trick in 2018, when he was called to deal with a male Bigg’s killer whale that refused to leave Comox Harbour, on the east side of Vancouver Island. Upon hearing the recording of another whale known to be close to the harbour whale, the effect was instantaneous: He headed for the sound of his pal at full speed and didn’t come back.

This time, Mr. Cottrell and his colleagues were left to wonder what the great-aunt said in her recorded message.

It was one tool in a toolkit that has several, though, and Mr. Cottrell and some 40 other experts – including veterinarians, acoustics and drone specialists, heavy equipment operators and data imaging analysts – are moving on to other options.

Several efforts in the two weeks since the young killer whale and its mother threaded a narrow channel into the lagoon near the remote village of Zaballos, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, have failed to lure the calf out of the lagoon.

The mother, who was pregnant, ended up stranded on a sandbar just inside the lagoon and she died March 23, despite efforts by the local First Nation members who were trained by Mr. Cottrell.

Now, rescuers are considering whether the calf – its sex is unknown – will have to be hoisted out of the lagoon in a sling and hauled by truck, boat, helicopter or a combination of them to a net pen, where the creature will be held until it can be released when its pod is nearby.

John Ford, a leading expert on cetaceans off Canada’s West Coast, said the odds of the calf surviving if it can be united with another pod are good.

Most Bigg’s killer whales share a common dialect, and individuals are known to leave one pod and join another. “So, if the little whale exits the lagoon, there’s a good possibility it would link up with another Bigg’s group, even if not its extended family,” he said.

But the mission has been the most complex that Mr. Cottrell has ever led in a career that, since 2007, has seen him help free scores of cetaceans entangled in fishing nets, stranded on land or hanging out in dangerous waters.

Getting into the lagoon in the first place was a freak accomplishment for the calf: The channel is only passable at a slack tide, when the water is high and calm, and the window lasts only 20 minutes at best.

Tide conditions haven’t been in the rescuers’ favour. Even high tide is currently at a lower level than ideal for the whale to escape.

Members of the rescue team have said it’d be best if the whale was out of the lagoon within two weeks, though right now, the calf is vocalizing and drone footage indicates it is healthy and active.

In the meantime, rescuing the animal the Ehattesaht have named kwiisahi?is, which translates as Little Brave Hunter, has brought together DFO scientists, band members from the Ehattesaht and Nuchalaht, as well as local businesses – employees with an area oyster farm dropped off a huge net on Thursday – with the common aim of setting the whale free.

Ehattesaht Chief Simon John said his small nation has a cultural obligation to the killer whales, animals central to their origin stories.

“This whale is showing us a pathway,” Chief John said. “We can achieve a process of reconciliation through relationships.”

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.