Orca Rescue!: The True Story of an Orphaned Orca Named Springer
Soon I was spending every vacation traveling to see whales In 1992 I went to Hawaii for a conference about whales and dolphins Researcher Paul Spong gave a presentation about orcas I knew people in Seattle would love it so I asked Paul if he would give the talk there He said yes When I got home I had to learn how to put on a public event something I'd never done before My friends and I formed a group called Orca Alliance We rented a hall and made posters Near where I live there is an outdoor pool with a pool house During winter when the pool was closed someone had taped photos of orcas to the pool house windows I slipped a poster under the door hoping whoever took the pictures would find it The night of the presentation I met Mark Sears the pool caretaker He grew up on Puget Sound watching orcas and became a part time whale researcher When whales are near he takes photos to identify them and records their behaviors We have been friends ever since In 1993 I started working at a software company an exciting place where I learned how to manage projects and teams And through it all I wrote poems and stories and journals where I kept track of my orca dreams The strands of my life came together in 2002 when a young orca was discovered alone near the north end of Vashon Island This is the true story of what happened next
She Arrives January 2002 When the little whale showed up no one knew who she was A quartermaster on the Vashon ferry called my friend Mark Sears and told him there was a young orca swimming nearby Mark was skeptical He hadn't heard of any whales in the area It's an orca for sure the quartermaster said And it looks like she's alone Weird Mark thought Orcas live in tightly bonded families called pods They stay with their mothers their entire lives In more than 30 years of studying whales near Seattle Mark had never encountered an orca by itself especially a young one But the quartermaster was a reliable spotter so Mark decided to go out and have a look
