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Luna and his family
By Howard Garrett
Orca Network
August 6, 2003

The decision whether to help L98 (Luna) to rejoin his family rests with Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and local First Nations people. The decision-making process has involved a variety of scientists and elders holding various viewpoints. So far the decision has been to take no action except to assist in monitoring Luna's intrusive behavior and helping to educate the public to stay away from him.

We strongly advocate that Luna be returned to his mother, L67, and her family, the L2 matriline. We believe Luna can recognize his family and will rejoin them if given the opportunity. The central point made by DFO to justify the "no action" option appears to be the speculation that Luna would not rejoin his family, but instead would show up beside boats like he is doing now in Nootka Sound but among much more traffic, possibly causing an accident or injury to himself or others. On July 28 Marilyn Joyce of the DFO said in a televised broadcast: "We're very concerned that if Luna was brought down into the area that he has more opportunity to interact with people and boats which will become even more of a danger for him and the public." The behavioral model Joyce is referring to appears to be the nuisance bear, rummaging through garbage cans, that has lost its fear of humans and is likely to become ever more aggressive.

We believe this opinion is based on the inability of the DFO to understand the implications of recent studies and events. The primary finding needed to assess Luna's prospects if returned to his family, that has not been incorporated into DFO's thinking, is that the species Orcinus orca can be expected to act according to cultural influences. We cite "Culture in Whales and Dolphins," Luke Rendell and Hal Whitehead's pivotal paper published in 2001in the prestigious Journal of Behavioural and Brain Sciences. From the abstract: "The complex and stable vocal and behavioural cultures of sympatric groups of killer whales (Orcinus orca) appear to have no parallel outside humans and represent an independent evolution of cultural faculties."

This cultural perspective on orcas opens a vast new field of knowledge on which biologists are ill-equipped to play. With the cultural behavior model now established for orcas, the perspectives of anthropology and sociology are needed to interpret and predict orca behavior. This would be just a fascinating armchair conversation if not for the need to help poor Luna, lost and lonely, clamoring for company far out of range of his family. Any decision on whether to help him and how to do so depends on how we understand the species, yet the biological advisors the DFO has consulted do not have backgrounds in cultural behavior, so they are challenged to make an adequate assessment of Luna's capabilities, his memories, and the strength of his cultural identity.

Like humans, but unlike any other mammal known (with the possible exception of a few other cetacean species), each orca is born into and grows up as a member of a cultural community, bonded for life. This membership and identity are not lost, regardless of time spent away from the community. Knowledge of self as a member of a cultural community overrides the kinds of instinctual, stimulus-response behavior associated with other mammals, such as bears.

The conclusion is that Luna knows who he is in the context of his family and community. There is no reason to assume he has forgotten his family or the vocalizations they use to communicate, and there is no reason to believe he is somehow an outcast or is undesirable to his family. He remains a member of the L2 matriline. He's simply out of reach, lost, and when that problem is resolved by bringing him close to his family, he'll know them immediately and he'll know what to do. He'll rejoin them. A lost human child old enough to learn his family's language would do the same.

Obviously, the most tragic and uninformed decision, now under consideration by DFO, would be to remove Luna to a concrete tank.

For guidance in helping Luna we have only to cast a glance at A73, Springer, who immediately recognized her family and has thoroughly reintegrated with them. There is no longer any sign that she once paddled up to boats, leaned on them, rolled upside down, and generally made a nuisance of herself. She's an A11 pod whale again. Luna will surely do the same, if the DFO will just understand his capability to rejoin his relatives and allow him to be helped in his search for them.

Special thanks to the OrcaNetwork for allowing us to use this information.