Morgan (orca)

Morgan in Captivity August 2010
By Annemieke Podt

History

Morgan is a lone female orca that was captured in the Wadden Sea, off the northwestern coast of the Netherlands in June 2010. The Netherlands Government issued a permit for the then unnamed orca to be captured and temporarily transferred for rehabilitation to the marine mammal park Dolfinarium Harderwijk, in the village of Harderwijk, the Netherlands. The orca, now named Morgan, was administered medical assistance and provided with food. The stated reason for the orca's rescue wasemaciated (weighing approximately 430 kg)^[1] and likely also dehydrated. Her body length was 3.5 m.^[1]

Current Health

Since being taken in by the Harderwijk Dolfinarium, much care and husbandry expertise has seen Morgan increase in weight and length, now measuring 3.52 meters in length.

Public Controversy

Controversy surrounds Morgan as she was captured with the proviso that she was not to be displayed to the public and that she would be released back into the wild when she had recovered. However the Harderwijk Dolfinarium and the Free Morgan Group, composed of independent international experts, have come to logger-heads over Morgan's future. The Free Morgan Group includes the orca research / education organisations of Orcalab, Orca Network, Orca Research Trust, Centre for Whale Research, and Project SeaWolf Coastal Protection. It also includes the conservation and animal welfare groups the Cetacean Society International, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island, as well as their affiliated scientists and experts.

Currently the Dolfinaruim Harderwijk has advised that they wish to ship Morgan to another captive marine mammal facility and that she is not a suitable candidate for release into the wild. Yet the Free Morgan Group presented a detailed rehabilitation and release plan which to date (June 2011) has not openly been considered by those who hold her.

The Free Morgan Group rehabilitation and release plan included a number of phases with contingency plans. The plan incorporated a ‘soft-release’ where Morgan would first be moved to a sea-pen and care for her would continue. The process would, should her health allow, also involve taking Morgan out into the open sea to increase her fitness and reacquaint her with the area. During that time she would be provided with food whilst she continued to readapt to the wild (somewhat like a half-way house for people who are in the process of reintegrating into society).

An attempt to release a captive orca back into the wild has only been conducted once – resulting in a partial success for Keiko, the star of the Free Willy movie. The Canadian and United States governments have also successfully released and reintegrated a rescued orca named Springer Springer, a situation which bore many similarities to that of Morgan. Springer, like Morgan, was found alone, many miles from where her family pod is resident and in an emaciated condition. After being kept in a sea pen in Pueget Sound and nursed back to health, Springer was then transfered to a sea pen off of northern Vancouver island from where she was ultimately released. She successfully reintegrated with a resident British Columbia orca pod and is still with that pod today. However, unlike Springer, Morgan was taken immediately to a concrete pen and, despite the original agreement that she would not be shown to the public, Morgan was displayed by the Dolphinarium only two months after she was taken into captivity. The Dolphinarium made zero attempt to pursue any rehabilitiation and release plan despite the arguments of many of the world's leading cetacean scientists that Morgan was an excellent candidate for a rehabilitation attempt similar to the succesful rehabilitation of Springer. It became clear that the Dolphinarium's main interest in Morgan was to sell her to Loro Parque in exchange for Dolphins from Seaworld so that she could participate in SeaWorld's captive breading program. Loro Parque has very well documented problems with its captive Orca program including numerous attacks on trainers by the captive Orcas, in one instance leading to the death of the trainer.

Despite some similarities, Morgan's situation is different to that of Luna, a young male orca who became isolated in the Nootka Sound area of Vancouver Island, Canada. In that instance Luna was never taken into captivity of any form and no official attempts were made to rehabilitate him back into the orca society he came from. Luna died when he was presumed to be run over by a tugboat. Luna's case does show however that a young stranded orca is capable of surviving and hunting on its own, an argument that the Dolphinarium attempted to ignore.

Support for Morgan's release has also come from another group called the The Orca Coalition (comprising seven organisations), which has employed a lawyer through funding raised by donations. The Orca Coalition is now intending to confront the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation, to prevent Morgan from being transferred to another marine mammal captive facility and instead, for her to be moved to the proposed site of the sea-pen (Deltapark Neeltje Jans in The Netherlands), where she can begin her rehabilitation.

There are many issues surrounding keeping orcas in captivity including a reduced life-span, compared to orca in the wild. Morgan has been in captivity for one year (as of June 2011). Her exact age is unknown, but when she was captured, she was estimated to be between one to four years old based on her size. The reason for her ill-health and separation from her family remains unknown. Morgan's young age offers both advantages and disadvantages to the arguments for her release. Being young she is likely to still have a flexible attitude and therefore an ability to adapt to a return to the wild. Against her is that she may be too young to know the complete home range of her family, making it harder for her to find them. This last augment, however can be countered with a ‘soft-release’ program which would allow Morgan to slowly build up her stamina as well as her knowledge of the area, albeit with the option to always return for food. One source suggests that Morgan is too young for release as she would still be ‘heavily dependent on milk’,^[1] yet she has not been feed milk while at the Dolfinaruim Harderwijk, only fish.

Great emphasis is placed on finding the family or home range of rehabilitated animals of all species which are returned to the wild. The advantage for the animals is wide-ranging and can have many spin-offs to assist them in their return. This includes the social support and local knowledge (such as places to find food). Orca are well known for their strong social networks, with some populations having such strong bonds that individuals only join a group by being born into it and only leave by dying, whist others have more of a fluid society with long-term and semi-long term bonds formed. Morgan has been identified as belonging to the Norwegian fish-eating orca community (based on DNA analysis and supporting evidence from acoustical matching).^[1] The social structure of the Norwegian orca has been studied to some degree,^[2][3] and both studies suggest that the “groups seem to be social units based at least partly on stable membership”.^[2] One study also noted that there was communal care of young^[2] which may bode well for Morgan if she if she is given the opportunity to re-integrate into the population.

Individual Norwegian orca are known to travel some distance from the site of their original identification,.^[4][5] One orca was photographed 700 km from it’s previous sighting a year earlier,^[4] not to mention that Morgan herself has travelled from Norway to the Wadden Sea, a distance (depending on exact locations) of approximately 1,200 km. Additionally, there have been sightings of orca in the North Sea since Morgan’s capture.

If moved to another marine mammal captive facility, Morgan is likely to be used in the captive breeding programs^[6] which many aquariums now advocate. She would provide much-needed ‘new blood’ to prevent a population (or genetic) bottleneck in the captive orca population, as she presumably comes from an orca population not related to those orca currently in captivity.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2011, Agricultural Secretary Henk Bleker announced that Morgan would be transferred to a Spanish zoo, known as Loro Parque. Animal activists involved within the Free Morgan Foundation have been working around the clock to stop the transfer of Morgan to the zoo.

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} "Research on Morgan by Project NAKID". http://www.northatlantickillerwhales.com/index.asp?pageid=276423. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Bisther, A., & Vongraven, D. (1995). Studies of the social ecology of Norwegian killer whales (Orcinus orca). Developments in Marine Biology, 4, 169-176.
3. ^ Ugarte, F. (2001). Behaviour and social organisation of killer whales in Northern Norway. Masters, University of Tromsø, Tromsø, Norway.
4. ^ ^{a b} Lyrholm, T. (1988). Photoidentification of individual killer whales, Orcinus orca, off the coast of Norway, 1983-1986. Rit Fiskideildar, 11(North Atlantic killer whales), 89-94.
5. ^ Similä, T., Holst, J. C., & Christensen, I. (1996). Occurrence and diet of killer whales in northern Norway: seasonal patterns relative to the distribution and abundance of Norwegian spring-spawning herring. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 53, 769-779.
6. ^ "Killer whale (Orcinus orca) reproduction at Sea World". Duffield, D. A., Odell, D. K., McBain, J. F. and Andrews, B. (1995), Zoo Biology, 14: 417–430. doi: 10.1002/zoo.1430140504. doi:10.1002/zoo.1430140504. 

External links

• Free Morgan Group
• Column (in Dutch) about Morgan by blogger Peter Miedema