Authorities in Canada say a young orca trapped for more than a month in a lagoon on Vancouver Island has overcome a bottleneck during high tide and reached an inlet that could take her to the open sea.
ZEBALLOS, British Columbia. A young orca trapped for more than a month in a Vancouver Island lagoon swam past a bottleneck during high tide early Friday and reached an inlet that could take her to the open sea, authorities said. .
The Ehattesaht and Nuchatlaht First Nations said in a statement that a team monitoring the 2-year-old calf saw her swim past the area where her mother had died, go under a bridge and head toward the cove “alone.”
The young orca has yet to leave Little Espinosa Inlet to reach the open sea.
The calf had been trapped in the tidal lagoon near the British Columbia town of Zeballos, about 450 kilometers (280 miles) northwest of Victoria, since March 23, when its pregnant mother became trapped during low tide and died. on a rocky beach.
“Today, the Zeballos community and people everywhere are waking up to incredible news and what can only be described as pride in the strength this little orca has shown,” Chief Simon John said in a statement.
Officials said they hoped that once the whale reaches the open ocean, its orca family will hear its calls.
John said officials and members of the nation were putting protective measures in place to ensure the whale had no contact with people or ships.
“Every opportunity must be provided for her to return to her family with as little human interaction as possible,” he said.
An attempt in mid-April to free the whale involved using a net to corral it in a large cloth sling in shallow water. The whale managed to avoid a 50-person rescue team using boats, divers and sophisticated underwater detection equipment.
In another effort, a woman attempted to remove the whale from the lagoon by playing her violin during high tide.