What boundary? What whale? Whose responsibility? - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 172

passive and animal-friendly, may harm animals. Studies reveal that harassment from
whale-watching, essentially chasing the whales, and the air pollution of the hovering
boat traffic, may cause much stress to the animals in questions (Jelinski et al. , 2002;
and Williams et al. , 2002). Thus, the tourist eager to learn about, and bear witness
to, animals in their natural habitat becomes a hybrid space between “wild” and
“harassed” (Cloke and Perkins, 2005; Besio et al. , 2008; Murray, 2009).
Another part of the process of “knowing” Luna, specifically, or orcas more
generally, is the development of a science industry that has grown around study-
ing the behavior of orcas. For the past 40 years, scientists throughout the world
have spent considerable time and effort learning about the behavior of orcas (Baird,
2001). During the course of these studies, scientists have learned what constitutes
the “normal” behavior of orcas, generally, and in the coastal waters off British
Columbia and Washington (Duffus and Deardon, 1993; Ford et al. , 2000; Baird,
2001; Filatova et al. , 2004; and Miller et al. , 2004). For example, it is known
that orcas in this region are social creatures, have distinct calls, stay with their
mothers for life, and are members of either a transient, resident, or offshore
pod. These studies also document how orcas are affected by anthropogenic
behavior: that the noise of engines affects their ability to find fish through
echolocation, that overfishing of salmon and global warming are reducing food
sources, and that toxic waste and polychlorinated biphenyls are causing damage to
their immune systems (Jelinski et al. , 2002; Wartzok et al. , 2003; Ford et al. , 2004;
Lusseau et al. , 2004).
Not only are the general characteristics of the orcas known but, also, every
resident orca in the Salish Sea study area is documented through comprehensive
census studies, led by the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island. Through
this constant monitoring and documentation, the genealogies of the orcas are known
in stunning detail. The whales are known through unique markings behind their
dorsal fins called “saddle patches” and the shape of the fins, recorded through
photographs. The whales are assigned unique alphanumeric designations depending
on which pod they are in and when they were born. Topics and brochures are
published with this information so that anyone interested (from scientists to tourists)
can easily identify the orcas. Scientists know Luna as L98. That is, he is a member
of the resident L-pod population, and he was the ninety-eighth whale born to that
pod since scientists started systemically recording their genealogy . 5 F or example,
this statement about Luna's lineage was posted on the Reunite Luna (2012)
website:
When Luna was born, in September 1999, Marine Biologists were unsure
who his mother was. He was often seen swimming with Splash (L67), but
also with Kiska (K18). Eventually he was observed being nursed by Splash,
and it is believed that Kiska, whose calf had died, was treating Luna as her
own.
The classification systems allow scientists to recognize aberrant behavior, or
matters out of place. Thus, when Luna strayed from his “rightful” path, scientists