Have to say this is brutal how this panned out, I also had a close encounter when he was young after we had just docked a crew boat - he came right up the side of the boat and looked me in the eye. While fascinated of course, I knew this was messed up and we did all we could and cleared the area as soon as we could. The good thing is that I figured it would be a human that would die first.
All I have to say is shame on the people early on that felt the need to 'find' him, and interact with him, and even worse, molest him. Shame on the natives for interfering the attempt to reunite Luna with his family. Lastly and mostly though, shame on the government for not having the balls to go up against the natives and do the right thing. In my mind, this is no different than a child getting separated from his family in a mall, some stranger finding the baby, and basically adopting it as his own with totally disregard for the family that can't find it. Of course at a young age, in due time, that stranger would become 'all you know' and you'd assume it was family - I'm sure that is what Luna went through. If the above example took place, that would be considered a criminal act. So the natives interfere with an endangered species and the government just says ok??? Pathetic!
Maybe he would not have adjusted to a reuniting with his family, maybe he would have just come back in search of boaters and died that way, or killed someone. Now, we will never know because of the inconsiderate people that decided to cross the line in the animal/human interaction, and the government that didn't have the balls to step on a few natives feet and do the right thing.
Sad sad world!
