Survey - The Town that Lost a Miracle

It was the most haunting thing of all that summer: watching Jill swim backwards and forwards with Opo. They were like partners in a ballet ...

– Maurice Shadbolt recalls dolphin rider Jill Baker

Kupe brought her here for a purpose.

– Piwai Toi

He said, ‘I’m going to shoot that fish’, and I said, ‘do you mean Opo?’. ‘Yes’, he said, ‘I’m going to shoot that fish’. I said ‘why?’. He said ‘because you fellas think more of that fish than you do of me'.

– A teacher remembers an encounter with an Opo-hater

At that time there was quite a lot fishermen. None of them was too keen on Opo.

– A fisherman remembers

The Town That Lost a Miracle was my first attempt at introducing a Māori element into the mainstream. I was searching for a resolution by way of values I hardly knew at the time.

– Director Barry Barclay

I think we can prove nothing, but the facts point as you suggest: not a natural death.

– One of those interviewec

The Town That Lost a Miracle, is without a doubt the most interesting and evocative programme I have yet seen in the series.

– Critic Michael King, writing in The Listener, 3 July 1972

As the documentary showed graphically, the coming of Opo released contradictory forces that are perhaps latent in all New Zealand communities but rarely seen so nakedly: loyalty and envy; gentleness and viciousness; trust and scepticism; generosity and avarice. At its most fundamental level, The Town That Lost a Miracle was about the citizens of Opononi, not their dolphin.

– Critic Michael King in The Listener, 3 July 1972