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Working in a newsroom, I hear all kinds of things before other people do -- some of them good, some of them bad, almost always they're interesting. But when my boss passed by my desk on Friday, March 10 and told me, "Luna is dead," I was so shocked all I could do was repeat his words back to him: "Luna is dead?" Just the night before, my husband and I had read an article in Pacific Yachting on how to avoid getting into trouble with the outgoing whale should we find ourselves in Nootka Sound.

Whether you loved him or found him more trouble than treasure, Luna and his presence in the remote body of water off the west coast of Vancover Island seemed a permanent thing. But it was not to be.

The story of Luna began on September 19, 1999 in Puget Sound near San Juan Island. We know this because biologists were in the area shortly after his mother, known as Splash, gave birth. He was immediately assigned a name: L-98. The "L" stood for the pod he was born into.

Soon after, the Seattle Post Intelligencer held a contest to give the little guy a proper name, Luna, the Latin word for "moon," was chosen because "the orca whale explores the ocean like the moon explores the earth."

Like all resident killer whales, Luna should have spent the rest of his life in that pod. But it's believed that before the age of two he went on an outing with his uncle because both of them disappeared from the pod around the same time. The uncle was never seen again.

A few months later, in July 2001, Luna was sighted in Nootka Sound. It was assumed that the uncle must have died, leaving his young nephew in the middle of nowhere and without a clue as to how to find his way back to his family. And so Luna headed north and found the secluded body of water that would become his home, and where he would become famous, if not infamous.

It's not natural for killer whales to live alone. They are highly social animals. Luna sought out company and amusement wherever he could find it. He was a child far from home and all alone. Who couldn't feel for him? And so, people reached out -- literally. Where else could you pet a wild killer whale? At first he was a curiosity. But as word of the lonely leviathan spread, boaters started to flock to the site and the situation turned dangerous.

Float plane pilots feared hitting Luna on landing and takeoff. Boat owners found it hard to escape his attentions and sometimes incurred damage to their vessels. And there were reports of people feeding him beer, threatening him and one account of a frustrated person hitting Luna with a stick. There was a public outcry to reunite Luna with his pod. Why not? It worked for Springer, the orphaned killer whale who had recently been successfully reunited with her pod.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), after much consultation, decided it was worth a try. With $100,000 funding from the U.S. federal government and matching funds from our own, they would try to capture Luna, then transport him to Pedder Bay near Victoria, where a net pen had been set up. The plan was to hold him in the pen until his pod passed by, then release him in the hopes of Luna rejoining his clan.

It seemed like a good plan. But the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation thought otherwise. They believed Luna to be the embodiment of their late Chief Ambrose Maquinna, who, shortly before his death, had expressed a wish to return as a killer whale. When Luna first arrived in the chief's traditional territory of Nootka Sound just days after his passing, it seemed more than mere coincidence. So when the day came to lure Luna away on June 16, 2004, the band members arrived on the scene in two traditional canoes, determined to coax him back. And by rewarding him with the attention he craved, they succeeded. After a few days, the DFO and the Vancouver Aquarium, which had been signed on to attempt the move, gave up.

For the next two years Luna remained in the Sound, a solitary wild animal living an unnatural existence and starved for the kind of social contact he would most probably never find there. His days were filled by following boaters -- ticking off some people, thrilling others -- and, in the course of it all, tempting fate. Luna seemed savvy about the harm boats could inflict. And yet, accidents do happen. He had received at least one nick from a propeller.

But it was on a Monday morning, in the midst of a storm that had brought the 30-metre tug General Jackson into Mooyah Bay to seek shelter, when Luna's odyssey would end. The tug was idling when Luna got too close to the vessel's massive propeller. Those who know the grizzly details have assured us that it was over quickly, and that Luna did not suffer. For that at least, we can be thankful.

There are heavy fines in place -- up to $100,000 -- for any person found disturbing a whale, including petting, feeding or intentionally harming one. But no fine could have protected Luna from his own curiosity.