(Luna swims into Mooyah Bay ‘05 & the moon that over lapped his death in ‘06 taken in Mexico, see Luna Love for more)
It’s the eve of Luna’s death and he is on my mind. As I write this, I believe that I speak for more then just myself. As more and more people become aware of Luna’s story, it is important for me to point something out. As one of the individuals who was there before many others including big media, there has been some kind of misunderstanding that Luna was deprived of human affection by those that were “policing” his situation at the time. Luna’s intervention was important as he was interacting dangerously with boat motors and sustained injuries from this. Many people in boats, would be come trapped or confused as to how to proceed or even exit his interaction because he would make contact with motors and out of fear of harming him people would remain trapped for long periods of time.
Some parties believed that interacting with Luna would lead to his death, while others believed that interacting would save him. The truth is that Luna received tons of love and affection from many people through the duration of his life, with or without supervision. During my involvement there in 2003, only two of us at a time were on scene, and had to intervene Luna from pushing a float plane rudder around. That means, that the plane has no control over steerage as Luna’s pushing it from behind. And for a moment, imagine you are sitting on that plane under power… how would you feel, a bit scared? Now imagine that only you and one other are around to intervene with that situation. Not quite a walk in the park with your dog!. (And you might want to know that, that day it was move the animal away from the plane or deal with a whale being shot. We know that we saved his life that day.) And so we were instructed to interact with him to protect his life.
Luna was already accustomed to people by the time we arrived in 2003. The previous year, stewardship did what they could to encourage people to leave Luna be as it was best for his survival as a wild whale. This was determined not by those monitoring him but by a larger group of people – those of scientific background. Irregardless of what you personally think is best for Luna, many measures were tried and in the end, he died. It seems easy for those people just now becoming aware of his situation to point fingers, curse and blame various parties for his death and I have even seen people wishing death on others for his death. There obviously needs to be more education in this department, so this is where I am coming in.
In the end, he died alone, where no one could save, see or even salvage his remains. He took the mystery with him, leaving us to ponder what it was all about. For me, this is an ultimate lesson in nature and ultimately the universe, and that sometimes no matter how hard we try, we cannot control the outcome. We simply do not know what is best for Luna. Luna was the only one truly in charge of himself. Many of those involved who are taking much blame from the public worked tirelessly around the clock and out of their pockets to see him survive. I urge you to go and try this sometime yourselves before making such negative comments to others about their “failed” efforts as you may see them.
What is more important here, is not what we should have, or should not have done, but that we did try and that we all loved Luna (well most of us). I have been following behind comments on the internet landing on my media and others, to try to help people understand the situation better, from different eyes because it really was very difficult and impossible to control. I ended up in the situation as a volunteer because i’d had a dream I saw a whale interacting with people at a dock and followed up with documentation. I am a dream-tracker and followed behind other dreams also including Luna, that came true. See my Story “Luna Love” for more about that (still in progress). In the process I was thrown into the most difficult and traumatic experience of my life.
To all those people damming the “Do Gooders” or “Whale Police” from “stopping” affection with Luna, think again, does it look like that was a success??? Luna always had affection and interactions with people and there was nothing anyone could have done about that (like that or not), as you probably already know. Some of us were simply the mechanics of a much larger operation, and we took the beatings, we took the name callings, we took the brunt of the dirty work because we cared and loved Luna. And what did we get back in return? More accusations from more people who unfortunately are unable to open their minds and understand the very complex situation we were involved in. Through this I have seen a very ugly side of humanity. But I have also seen a beautiful side, and this is what motivates me to write this.
There is nothing I resent doing. Sometimes I wonder if I’d really missed out on something by not physically touching Luna, but remind myself that I was touched in my soul in a way very few will ever know and that has made all the pain and suffering worthwhile. He was my dream come true. I hope my grandchildren tell their children some day about my story, and understand that legends are real. Luna was a Chief and a prophecy and I got to know this first hand. Thank you and I love you Luna. <3
