Victor Ives on Rescue 911 with William Shatner, Part III

Part III

Victor Ives notes:

Rescue 911 with William Shatner reported on an expedition to rescue a pod of Killer Whales trapped in a fresh water lake.

This is when I was manager and part owner of Channel 32 in Portland and also running the "Fishing The West" show which we produced and syndicated on 150 TV stations.

The story is .... my crew came back from a shoot in Alaska and reported on some Orca which were trapped in a fresh water lake and would soon die.

We tried to get the government to do something and they refused. (Not only that, threatened that if WE did try to help we would be arrested and fined $10,000 for every marine mammal we "interfered with" to the extent of changing the course of it's direction.

When I was at KSFO I did a lot with Marine World Africa USA. So, I called them and asked if I could get one of their experts to come up and help us figure out what to do. They said yes, if we could figure out how to get to Alaska.

The next call was Harry Merlow CEO of Louisiana Pacific lumber company who loaned us a jet plane and crew. We took the jet to Anchorage and then a sea plane to the fishing resort that provided accommodations and got us to the lake,

In addition to Marine World theme park we got a scientist from Bush Gardens.

Local lumber workers and fishermen volunteered for the round-up.

I was a 90 pounds heavier than now and it was a lot of work.. We had to go out into the open ocean for about 40 minutes in little boats with outboard motors.

I wasn't sure I wasn't going to die. But, I would have rather been remembered for this than any silly TV show I did. However, the Good Book is right when it says, "Your Sins Will Find You Out". I used to quip, I could win a Pulitzer Prize and still people would say, "Didn't you used to be the guy on Sinister Cinema"?

Since so much of my career was pretty darn frivolous, I am proud to have been able to put my experience to a positive end.

Category:

Entertainment

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• Victor Ives
• William Shatner
• Rescue 911
• Killer Whales
• Animal rescue