We want a Disney ending, but nature isn’t like that

For the past fortnight the country – and it seems the world – has been in a state of loving anxiety about the future of a tiny baby. A baby called Toa.

You know the story. How Toa was with his pod as it cruised past Plimmerton beach on July 11, how he was playing in the waves, didn’t follow the adults who turned back to safer, deeper water, and instead ended up screaming on the rocks.

It’s a story made for Hollywood. Not only do you have a neo-natal orca that can’t survive without its mother and a pod, but you have the humans trying bravely to save Toa with 24/7 care. Everyone from the legendary Dr Ingrid Visser, who has been studying orcas since 1992, to Department of Conservation staff, to local iwi, to volunteers.

Let’s not forget also, straight out of Disney casting, 16-year-old Ben Norris, who, with his mates Flora Smith and Sean Carter, witnessed the beaching. Heartbreakingly, Ben told a reporter that as Toa screamed onshore, he thought he heard Toa’s mother calling. He can’t be certain, though, because of the noise.

He says the experience of being with Toa has changed his life. He now wants to study marine biology when he leaves school.

What is it about whales and dolphins? From Moby-Dick to Paikea of Whale Rider fame, they’ve infiltrated our folklore and our imaginations, as a strong yet gentle presence. Ma¯ ori believe that whales are their tipuna (ancestors).

Another Plimmerton volunteer, Justin Stretch, from Nga¯ ti Toa, told media the fact that Toa was a baby makes him even more special.

Which is why Toa’s fate has been reported in newspapers and media outlets around the world. The Guardian has printed regular reports, as has Singapore’s The Straits Times and The West Australian, fed by AAP and AFP correspondents here.

Here’s why: the world has endured upheaval and uncertainty over the past couple of years. Toa represents hope – hope for a happy ending. We’re all pretty much invested.

As John Campbell opined on Breakfast mid-week, ‘‘We’ve had a really crappy couple of years, and we want the fairytale ending, don’t we? And isn’t it lovely that we do?’’ Exactly.

Well, actually, not all of us do. In the best vaudevillian tradition,

there has to be a villain to this story.

E nter, stage left, Peter Williams, a veteran broadcaster (code for ‘‘old’’ in news-speak) who has a baying following of callers on Magic Talk radio.

He penned a blog earlier this week, with the temerity to ask, ‘‘Is

it time to kill off orca baby Toa?’’

The reason? That good old talkback standby, the cost to us as taxpayers. Williams quoted a TVNZ story that aired on July 19, which estimated the then cost of looking after Toa came to a heady $10,000.

It’s a weak argument when there’s plenty more government spending to question. Like the $685 million announced for Auckland’s pedestrian and cycling bridge or the $2.75m for a rehab programme connected to a gang, for instance.

Williams’ blog was the usual mix of illogical, judgmental thinking, designed to get the phones ringing. ‘‘Are there too many human feelings coming into this?’’ he asked. ‘‘This orca is, after all, an animal, it is designed to live in the marine wild, and are humans doing it any favour by mollycoddling it in a pool and hand-feeding it?’’

But Williams is not alone. For more compassionate reasons this week, the ethicists started raising questions about Toa’s future if he couldn’t be returned to his pod or another pod found for him.

Dr Karen Stockin, professor in marine biology and Rutherford Discovery Fellow at Massey University, said: ‘‘There are no guarantees that, even if Toa’s natal pod could be located, and a safe translocation were possible, that Toa himself would be accepted or even survive the process.

‘‘Of course, we all crave a Disney happy ending, but what matters most here is not our understandable human sentiment and emotion, but notably the viability and welfare of Toa.’’

Another word entered the narrative around Toa: speciesism, the idea that we treat some animals differently from others. Professor Annie Potts, co-director of the NZ Centre for Human-Animal Studies at Canterbury University, questioned why we reserve all our love and emotions for an orca calf while bobby calves are slaughtered ‘‘within days of birth’’, pointing out there’s no difference between the two.

Really? There have been reams of impassioned stories over the past 10 years arguing against the killing of millions of bobby calves on New Zealand farms.

What’s really happening here is another word that animal rights activists hate: anthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics to animals or objects. It’s deeply embedded into our psyches. Think Simba the Lion or Thomas the Tank Engine.

That we’ve named the orca calf ‘‘Toa’’, meaning brave or strong, signals that. Which will make it even more difficult if he has to be euthanised.

Illogically, we wait for that Disney ending.

Janet Wilson is a former journalist until recently working in public relations, including a stint with the National Party.