‘Highly complex operation’: Low tide pauses B.C. orca rescue efforts

Efforts to save an orca calf off Vancouver Island were frustrated by low tides on Saturday. Meanwhile, officials say they are re-thinking methods being used in the rescue attempt.

Rescuers working to save an orphaned whale calf stranded near a remote Vancouver Island community were kept off the water by low tides on Saturday, while Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials said they are re-evaluating techniques that have been used so far as they plan next moves.

In an email, department spokeswoman Leri Davies said the most promising tool used so far to coax the calf out of a lagoon near the community of Zeballos has been a “sound wall,” created by Oikomi metal pipes slung from a line of vessels.

The long metal pipes are partially lowered into the water and struck with hammers to create noise to direct the whale toward a narrow exit point, across a shallow sandbar, and back to open ocean.

“The reality is that this is a highly complex operation, in a dynamic and dangerous natural environment, working with limited time frames to effect a rescue, and contending with shifting wind, rain and tidal conditions,” Davies wrote.

“That said, the whale calf appears to be in good condition and monitoring of the whale’s health is ongoing.”

Rescuers have said the whale has come close to leaving the lagoon but has been reluctant to pass over the sandbar where its mother got stranded and died last week.

Other methods that have been tried include recorded whale calls, specialized directional guide lines, and the pounding of Indigenous drum beats.

The two-year-old calf’s mother died in the lagoon last weekend while local residents tried to free her. A necropsy of the 15-year-old Bigg’s killer whale showed she was pregnant with a female fetus when she died.