Alert Disney: apparently being “returned to wild” ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.

The star of the “Free Willy,” movies and one-time main attraction at the Oregon Coast Aquarium was returned to the wild years ago. The goal was to reintegrate the orca with a pod of wild killer whales.
But Keiko still swims alone along Norway’s central coast. At least three times a week, he follows his handlers’ boat 10 miles or farther out to sea.

A marine biologist would certainly know why Willy has no interest in taking up again with his old confreres after experiencing the horrors of “captivity” (maybe he isn’t thrilled by the prospect of hanging with a “pod of killer whales” – sounds sensible to me). There must be some lessons here for our overly romantic views of nature. I consider myself an environmentalist (maybe not of the Crunchy Con variety) and like to spend a lot of time outdoors. Part of which makes me feel qualified to say that a lot of “nature” just plain sucks. But at what point did we humans forget that most of the natural world is wretched? This is something that even Willy seems to understand, even if we no longer do.