As the summer went by, Luna began to interact with people more and the interaction with boats and people were beginning serve as the companionship and physical contact he would have normally received from his mother and the rest of his pod. At the same time, Luna was beginning to interact boaters by nudging their boats around and spinning them around like bath-tub toys before bouncing them up-and-down by pushing on the hull. But, by the summer of 2002, word began to spread about a lone killer whale in Nootka Sound. To his people, Luna’s appearance, which happened four days after his death, was considered to be so symbolic that the tribe believed that the animal was his living reincarnation.Ī family interacts with Luna from a small boat.Īt first, Luna, like most wild orcas, avoided contact with boaters and kept his distance away from people. At that time, members of the Mowachaht nation began to call Luna “Tsux’iit, after a deceased chief who wanted to return in the form of either an orca or a wolf after he died. But in the fall of 2001, Luna re-appeared alone in Nootka Sound, British Colombia on the northern west coast of Vancouver Island, hundreds of kilometers away from other Southern resident orcas.

But in the winter of 2000/2001, Luna was not sighted with his pod and was declared “dead”. In September of that year, Luna was sighted traveling with his birth pod for an annual migration. In the spring of 2000, Luna and Splash were sighted together and it appeared that they were now having a normal mother-and-calf relationship after speculation of weather of not Splash was Luna’s mother due to their multiple separations. Soon afterward, Luna left his mother’s side and started following and connecting with several members of K-pod for three days. However, in Luna’s case, there were no other whales that were nearby to help Splash care for her son. Normally when killer whales give birth, other members of their pod swim by them to assist the mother in caring for newborn calves. When he was first sighted by a whale watch boat, it appeared that both mother and son had some sort of disassociation from each other. Luna (L-98) was a southern resident killer whale who was born in September 1999 to mother Splash (L-67) as a member of the Southern Resident orca community.

Luna (L-98) was a southern resident killer whale who was known to fostering friendships with people.

Luna nootka sound