DFO warns boaters against disturbing orphan B.C. orca calf [Video]

The Fisheries Department says it’s monitoring and patrolling ocean waters off northwest Vancouver Island to ensure boat traffic doesn’t interfere with an orphan killer whale calf’s ability to reunite with her extended family.

The department said in a statement Friday it will be monitoring the location of the young female orca as she searches for her family in ocean waters near Zeballos, B.C., located more than 450 kilometres northwest of Victoria.

The killer whale calf, named kwiisahi?is or Brave Little Hunter by the nearby Ehattesaht First Nation, left a remote tidal lagoon for the ocean last Friday where she had been trapped since March 23 after her pregnant mother became stranded on a rocky beach at low tide and died.

The Fisheries Department said kwiisah?is’s chances of meeting up with members of a transient pod of Bigg’s killer whales, of which she is related, are good, but she should not …