Rantz: Some of your orca reaction is, well, nuts

Not to be a downer here, because I certainly understand why so many of you have spoken out in anguish over what we’ve seen with the pod of orcas struggling to survive in Puget Sound, but it needs to be said: some of your reaction is absolutely nuts and over-the-top. In some cases, it’s embarrassing.

Not because you have emotions, but because you’re focused on whales while human beings are suffering.

VIDEO: Team attempts to feed orca live salmon

The image of a mother orca carrying her deceased calf is, of course, heartbreaking. Our concern over another orca unwilling to eat is, of course, warranted. But some people are going to far.

“I can’t stop crying. I can’t sleep,” wrote a reader to the Seattle Times. “My heart is aching and I am powerless to help.”

If you can’t stop crying and you’re unable to sleep, there is something deeply wrong with your ability to cope. Orcas are not human. This kind of orca-suffering, while tragic and sad, should not render you unable to stop the tears from flowing. You should be able to sleep at night.

I’m not so much bothered by the reaction to this, I think, as I am to the reaction to stories of actual humans suffering. Literally, in our neighborhoods.

We have a worsening opioid epidemic and a growing homelessness problem. We have people living under freeways, surrounded by human waste, with a mental illness or addiction that isn’t being treated, and yet we can sleep well each night?

We have our neighborhoods turning into dumps. Have you been near Cherry Street and 6th? It’s like a trash-bomb went off. This isn’t good enough for animals to inhabit, let alone for the people we’re letting sleep there without any threat of being moved into a shelter.

But an orca won’t eat some salmon, so we can’t stop crying and can’t fall asleep? This is not rationale.

Orca over sea lions?

I’m always shocked by what some people are moved by — and what they’ll ignore.

What is it about orcas that are so moving? The majesty of the creature? We have many animals that are majestic. And it can’t be that whales are cute, which is often a reason we like some animals over others.

Just a few weeks ago, in a move to protect salmon, we said we’d be willing to murder more sea lions because they’re eating the salmon. We’ll kill adorable sea lions who are hungry so we can protect the salmon. But now we’re feeding the salmon to an orca. So we protect the salmon by killing the sea lions, only to try to get the orca to eat the salmon? Where were the tears and sleepless nights for the sea lions?

Too bad orcas don’t eat sea lions. We could feed them sea lions, which saves the orcas and the salmon at the same time. Two birds (well, not birds, I guess), one stone.

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