Jeff Foster’s resume sounds like the stuff of fantasy, starting as a teenage orca catcher in Puget Sound in Washington State, pursuing the giant predators for aquariums for decades, then having a change of heart and becoming a leading figure in killer whale rescue and rehabilitation.
The 68-year-old American says he got a call from Canada’s Department of Fisheries last month, for advice about how to capture a young orca that has now been trapped in a remote Vancouver Island lagoon for more than three weeks.