DUNGENESS — The young male killer whale rescued from Dungeness Spit has disappeared without a trace.
Rescuers had attached a radio transmitter to the five-ton, 22-foot orca before releasing it Friday in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, following three days of attempts to coax the huge creature from the shallow waters of Dungeness Bay after it repeatedly beached itself near a dead female orca believed to be its mother.
But the transmitter apparently failed to work properly, or the killer whale went somewhere where scientists cannot pick up the signals.
As of late Saturday, researchers had been unable to locate the killer whale.
“The last we knew he was heading west to the Pacific,” said National Marine Fisheries Service spokesman Brian Gorman.
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