Saving Luna
By Natalie Croak (06/08/13 20:10:14)
Related animal: Orca

In class we watched "Saving Luna," the story of a baby orca who becomes separated from his pod and attempts to become friends with humans in a British Columbian port town. At first people play with Luna and let him follow their boats. After a while however the authorities decide that this much human interaction is harmful for him and they hire people to encourage boaters to stay away from Luna. Luna still continues to attempt to play with anyone who will give him attention, leading to the decision that he should be removed and taken to an aquarium. The First People believed that Luna was the reincarnation of one of their leaders so they lured Luna away from the nets with drums and wooden canoes. However at the end of the movie Luna ends up being killed by a tugboat propeller because he got too close to the boat.
This movie was incredibly depressing for me because it seems that there is no real right solution that could be found. The ideal would be for Luna to be reunited with his pod, however after the movie ended we learned that Luna's pod died of starvation a few months after his death. I am very against putting highly intelligent animals like whales and dolphins in aquariums because I believe they are smart enough to know that they are prisoners. However I agree that it wasn't the best situation to have Luna playing so close to the boats. If anything I hope that Luna's death draws attention to the problems that marine animals face and that better tactics for dealing with orphaned animals are developed.

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