Carol Love plays "Tennessee Whiskey" on her violin in an area where a pregnant orca died over three weeks ago in an effort to try and lure a two-year-old orca calf out of a lagoon she's been living in for over three weeks at Zeballos, B.C., on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

By Canadian Press

sweet sounds

Nanaimo woman tries to coax trapped killer calf out of tidal lagoon with her violin

Apr 18, 2024 | 9:02 AM

A Nanaimo woman says she is serenading a killer whale calf with her violin, hoping to entice the orca to leave the remote lagoon where she has been trapped alone for almost four weeks.

Carol Love says she is watching the tides at the Vancouver Island lagoon and will be playing the violin at every high tide to entice the orca calf to pass through a narrow channel, under a bridge and into the open ocean.

Love, a Canadian military veteran, says her first visit to the bridge Wednesday night didn’t work, but she did see the orca calf rise to the surface in the distance.

Love’s tidal-timed violin concerts come as a rescue team continues preparations for another attempt to catch the killer whale calf in a net and transport it to the nearby ocean.

The Ehattesaht First Nation named the young orca kwiisahi?is, or Brave Little Hunter, after she ventured into the lagoon off northwest Vancouver Island with her mother last month.

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The pregnant mother whale became stranded on a rocky beach at low tide and died, and rescuers have been trying to get the calf to leave the lagoon, 450 kilometres northwest of Victoria, so it can reunite with its pod.

Love, who says she couldn’t help but be inspired to help the orca calf, played her violin Wednesday along to a recording of her favourite song, “Tennessee Whiskey” by country singer Chris Stapleton.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 18, 2024.