ndous complications for release with animals as family focused as orcas.
Despite some similarities, Morgan's situation is different from that of Luna, a young male orca who became isolated in the Nootka Sound area of Vancouver Island, Canada. In that instance, Luna was never taken into captivity of any form and no official attempts were made to rehabilitate him back into the orca society he came from. Luna died when he was presumed to be run over by a tugboat. Luna's case does show, however, that a young stranded orca is capable of surviving and hunting on its own, an argument that the Dolphinarium attempted to ignore.
Despite the original agreement that she would not be shown to the public, Morgan was displayed by the Dolphinarium only two months after she was taken into captivity. The dolphinarium made no attempt to pursue any rehabilitiation and release plan despite the arguments of the Free Morgan Foundation that Morgan was an excellent candidate for a rehabilitation attempt similar to the successful rehabilitation of Springer.
Support for Morgan's release has also come from another group called the The Orca Coalition (comprising seven organisations), which has employed a lawyer through funding raised by donations. The Orca Coalition is now intending to confront the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation to prevent Morgan from being transferred to another marine mammal captive facility and instead for her to be moved to the proposed site of the sea-pen (Deltapark Neeltje Jans in The Netherlands), where she can begin her rehabilitation.
Great emphasis is placed on finding the family or home range of rehabilitated animals of all species which are returned to the wild. The advantage for the animals is wide-ranging and can have many spin-offs to assist them in their return. This includes the social support and local knowledge (such as places to find food). Orca are well known for their strong social networks, with some populations having such strong bonds that individuals only join a group by being born into it and only leave by dying, whilst others have more of a fluid society with long-term and semi-long term bonds formed. Morgan has been identified as belonging to the Norwegian fish-eating orca community (based on DNA analysis and supporting evidence from acoustical matching). The social structure of the Norwegian orca has been studied to some degree, and both studies suggest that the "groups seem to be social units based at least partly on stable membership". One study also noted that there was communal care of young which may bode well for Morgan if she is given the opportunity to re-integrate into the population.
Individual Norwegian orca are known to travel some distance from the site of their original identification. One orca was photographed 700 km from its previous sighting a year earlier, not to mention that Morgan herself has travelled from Norway to the Wadden Sea, a distance (depending on exact locations) of approximately 1,200 km. Additionally, there have been sightings of orca in the North Sea since Morgan's capture.
There are many issues surrounding keeping orcas in captivity, including a reduced lifespan compared to orca in the wild. Morgan has been in captivity since June 2011. Her exact age is unknown, but when she was captured, she was estimated to be between one to four years old based on her size. The reason for her ill-health and separation from her family remains unknown. Morgan's young age offers both advantages and disadvantages to the arguments for her release. Being young she is likely to still have a flexible attitude and therefore an ability to adapt to a return to the wild. Against her release is, as previously mentioned, the lack of a positive identification of her family group and even that she may be too young to know the complete home range of her family, making it harder for her to find them. This last issue could possibly be solved with a ‘soft-release’ program which would allow Morgan to slowly build up her stamina as well as her knowledge of the area, 