Rescuers scramble to save orphaned orca calf dubbed Brave Little Hunter [Video]

The scenic lagoon on the coast of Vancouver Island, in the far west of Canada, is usually quiet, interrupted only by the sounds of animals or a lone vehicle. But since an orphaned 2-year-old orca calf was stranded in the lagoon two weeks ago, the area has been buzzing with activity as preparations get underway to save her.

The rescuers – a motley crew of marine mammal experts, drone technicians, veterinarians, environmental consultants and First Nations people – are scrambling to reunite the young killer whale with her extended family, which includes a grandmother and an aunt and is suspected to be somewhere in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.

As food sources for the orca dwindle in the lagoon, rescuers know they must hurry.

“Time is not on our side,” Paul Cottrell, a marine mammal coordinator at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a federal government department, told reporters Thursday.

The orca calf, given …