Orca that wouldn’t stay in the water towed into strait and sent on its way

Associated Press

SEQUIM — A killer whale that repeatedly beached itself near Dungeness Spit was towed into open water Friday after several failed rescue attempts.

The orca was swimming freely and was heading west through the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward the Pacific Ocean, said Brian Gorman of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Scientists and wildlife workers had towed the whale off the beach five times, only to have it return to shore.

A small line was still attached to the whale, but rescuers were working to remove it. Using a small boat, they were able to tow the whale farther Friday using a harness instead of the ropes used previously, Gorman said.

"I think a cheer went up when he started heading in the right direction," Gorman said. "We’re all keeping our fingers crossed."

The whale will be closely monitored, Gorman said.

Experts had thought they might have to remove the whale, thought to be 20 years old, and place it in a tank. Tests on the whale did not indicate it is ill or having other problems.

"This whale doesn’t appear to have anything else wrong with it," Gorman said. "The results are what you’d expect for a healthy killer whale. It doesn’t seem to be under great distress, and it has no internal injuries that we can see."

About a dozen people worked on the rescue effort Friday.

Rescuers had monitored the whale overnight, keeping his skin wet and making sure he did not hurt himself. The orca had beached himself repeatedly Thursday, frustrating wildlife workers who towed him out of shallow water several times only to see him return to shore. A female orca was found dead nearby on Wednesday.

At nightfall Thursday, the 10,000-pound male killer whale was onshore in the westernmost corner of the bay behind the spit — far from the small opening that would allow him to escape the shallows.

The strandings of the two orcas drew scientists and whale enthusiasts to this spot on the north coast of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. Local residents gathered at overlooks to Dungeness Bay, and between 30 and 50 people hiked two miles out Dungeness Spit to near where the male was beached.

Kathy Angel, a nurse, watched through binoculars to get a glimpse of the male orca swimming toward shore, followed by boats.

"I just hope they can get him out safely," she said.

At the Port Williams boat launch a short distance east, biologists performed a necropsy — an animal autopsy — on the dead female orca, found beached near Dungeness Bay.

Scientists from state, federal and private organizations cut off the head, and removed organs and blubber, where toxins accumulate.

Tissue samples were sent to a lab to be analyzed. Gorman said results could be available within a week. The whale’s head will be examined in detail in the next week or two, he said.

Experts have hypothesized that toxins in Washington’s inland waters may be poisoning the black and white whales.

"We may never know what causes these strandings," Gorman said. "In half of these cases, there are no apparent causes. … It’s just a mystery."

He said the head was removed to be frozen so that scientists could check the sinuses. One possible explanation for the strandings, he said, is damage to the whales’ echolocation system, a network of fluid-filed sinus cavities that allow them to sense objects in the murky depths.

Coast Guard helicopters searched without success Thursday for a third whale reported in the area, believed to be a calf. Gorman said scientists were discounting the reports.

The male orca’s behavior mystified scientists. Some whale researchers believe the whale is related to the dead female.

The orca "may in fact be in some kind of distress from the fact the female has died," said Steve Jeffries, a state research scientist.

The two whales are thought to be transients in the Strait of Juan de Fuca from a larger Pacific population, Gorman said, and were probably hunting for seals.

Though most orcas live in family pods with defined territories, some transients wander as far south as Mexico’s Baja Peninsula and north to the Bering Sea.

Approximately 78 whales in three pods live in the marine waters of Washington, said Tracie Hornung of the Whale Museum in Friday Harbor. Seven of those whales failed to return to their summer range in Washington’s San Juan Islands after their winter travels last year.