Whales Swimming Through Diesel Slick Off Northern Vancouver Island

About 50 killer whales have swum through a diesel slick created when a barge overturned near Vancouver Island's famed orca rubbing beaches, a whale researcher said Tuesday. Paul's Spong's Orca Lab is about10 kilometres from where logging equipment, including a tank truck carrying diesel fuel, fell into Johnstone Strait. "One of the principle groups that uses this area and stays for a long time in the summertime is right in the middle of Robson Bight right now, in the middle of a very obvious oil slick," Spong said. "One of the younger whales has just exhaled a whole gob of mucous from the blowhole and I have no idea what the sort of health consequences of inhaling diesel fuel or fumes are but they're obviously not good." The fuel was spilled when a barge flipped Monday, sending a diesel truck with a 10,000-litre capacity, as well as an ambulance and pickup trucks, into the water...