One orca freed, ten to be caught and sold

From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  September 2002:

VANCOUVER,  B.C.;  SEA OF OKHOTSK–The orphaned orca A-73,
who followed the Seattle/Vachon Island ferry boats throughout the
spring in southern Puget Sound,  was captured,  treated for minor
ailments,  taken back to the A-pod home waters in the Johnstone
Strait,  and reunited with the pod in mid-July 2002,  at total cost
of $800,000.
The greatest part of the expense was borne by the Nichols
Brothers boatyard in Freeland,  Washington,  whose jet catamaran did
the hauling.

By July 18,  A-73 was often seen with A-51,  a 16-year-old
orphaned female,  among the 60-to-70-member A-pod.
The A-73 rescue came just as Russia authorized hunters along
the remote Sea of Okhotsk permission to capture up to 10 orcas for
sale to aquariums.  The newly opened Port Nagoya Public Aquarium in
Japan is expected to be the top bidder.
Russia already routinely exports beluga whales and dolphins
for exhibit.
The Alaskan subsistence whaling season brought the June 25
death of Melton Ozenna,  41,  of Little Diomede,  when his boat was
overturned by a harpooned gray whale.  The village was notified by
the International Whaling Commission that it will be fined for
hunting grey whales without a quota.
The IWC is to hold a special fall meeting to consider
reinstating the Alaskan subsistence quota of 50 bowhead whales to be
killed over the next five years,  Barrow Whaling Captains Association
president Eugene Brower told the Arctic Sounder in mid-July,  after
Japan withdrew opposition to the quota.  Japan blocked the quota at
the  May 2002 IWC annual meeting,  in retaliation after the U.S.
blocked a Japanese application for a “subsistence” quota on behalf of
coastal villages in the Japanese north.