Orca calf refuses to leave a lagoon where its mother stranded and died off Vancouver Island

A young orca is refusing to return to the open ocean after its pregnant mother became stranded and died in a lagoon off Vancouver Island in Canada, rescuers say.

The mother and calf entered the lagoon, which extends south of the village of Zeballos on the island's northwest coast, on Saturday (March 23). The orca mom may have flipped onto her side while chasing a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) and beached as the tide receded, Jared Towers, a marine scientist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada and director of the non-profit Bay Cetology, told CBC News.

Dozens of people tried to roll the stranded female onto her belly and provide her with water, but the orca didn't survive. A necropsy revealed she was pregnant when she died.

Since Saturday, rescuers have been trying to coax the orphaned calf back to sea, but the 2-year-old orca (Orcinus orca) has retreated further into the lagoon instead. Efforts are also hindered by the timing of the tides, with waters only rising high enough for the calf to safely navigate out of the lagoon during a 30-minute window each day.

Related: Dying orca's final moments after 'desperate' effort to stay afloat captured in 1st of its kind footage

"There's only half an hour every day that the whale can pass through that area as the tide goes slack, because other than that there's a lot of current, some rapids and for the most part very, very shallow water," Towers told The Canadian Press.

Members of the local Ehattesaht First Nation, who participated in the rescue effort, have named the young orca "Kʷiisaḥiʔis" (kwee-sa-hay-is), which translates to "Brave Little Hunter."