Annals Of Inanity–Luna Lunacy: The oddest, most absurd tug of war on the planet right now is taking place on Canada’s Nootka Sound. The object of the insanity: a killer whale called Luna. Seems Luna was separated from his pod when he was 2 years old and found his way to Nootka Sound. There, he swam, ate, lived it up and became remarkably friendly with the boaters and fishermen on his new home’s waters. Sounds okay, right? Well, cue ridiculously well-meaning–and inevitably stupid–government plan. Canada’s Department of Fisheries (DFO), apparently lacking enough to do despite a multitude of significant fisheries issues, decided that Luna was becoming (oxymoron alert) “dangerously friendly.” So the desk jockeys at DFO decided that Luna (now 5 years old and topping 4,000 pounds) had to be trapped in a pen, subjected to a week of medical poking and prodding, craned into a big tank and trucked a couple hundred miles down the coast where–if all the stars aligned perfectly–he would be reunited with his family pod. Sounds pretty unpleasant if you happen to be the whale in question. Luckily, a rag tag group of Mowachaht-Muchalaht aborigines decided that Luna was inhabited by the spirit of their late chief (is this a great story, or what?). Why? Luna turned up in Nootka Sound just weeks after the chief made a deathbed wish for his spirit to live inside a whale. So off they went, paddling and kayaking around the Sound in bad trucker hats. Singing and drumming, they coaxed Luna away from the pen constructed by the fisheries goons, and out toward open water. And every time Luna shows any interest in following the fisheries boats and the food that they are tempting him with, the natives paddle like crazy and start their singing. So far, Luna seems to prefer the aborigines. He’s been filmed by the growing media horde swimming alongside their boats as they stroke him and even rub his teeth. Wow, sounds like a seriously dangerous predator. Of course, the DFO mooks have no idea how to handle this growing PR disaster. There are laws against interfering with a whale, so they could try to arrest the tribal troubadours. But of course there are all those cameras to contend with. Here’s an idea for the Department of Fisheries: leave Luna the hell alone, let him live wherever he wants, and devote your overtapped budget to something useful, like, say, saving the salmon. It’s called N-A-T-U-R-E, and mostly it’s best left alone. Sure, Luna may eventually take a taste of some overzealous tourist in neon spandex. But would that necessarily be a bad thing…?



Some Predator: “Hey, Mom. He’s tickling me. Sing some more…”