Brave Little Hunter

A pod of killer whales has been spotted far offshore from the remote Vancouver Island inlet where an orphaned orca has been spending time since escaping a lagoon last month, but a member of her rescue team is downplaying the prospect of an imminent family reunion.

Work to coax the two-year-old Bigg's killer whale over a sandbar and into the open ocean started after its mother died more than a week ago when she beached at the lagoon and could not be saved.