Free Willy killer whale dies

Source : Ananova

Keiko, the killer whale star of the Free Willy films, had died.

The 35ft-long, six-ton whale, which was 27-years-old, died after the sudden onset of pneumonia in the Taknes fjord in Norway.

In the wild, orcas can live an average of 35 years. Keiko, which means Lucky One in Japanese, was originally found ailing in a Mexico City aquarium in 1993.

He was rehabilitated at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, then airlifted to Iceland in 1998. His handlers there prepared him for the wild, teaching him to catch live fish in an operation that cost about £300,000 a month.

Keiko was released from Iceland in July 2002. He swam straight for Norway, a 870-mile trek that seemed to be a search for human companionship.

Keiko first turned up near the village of Halsa in August 2002. He allowed fans to pet and play with him, even crawl on his back, becoming such an attraction that animal protection authorities imposed a ban on approaching him.

Nick Braden, a spokesman of the Humane Society of the United States, said vets gave Keiko antibiotics after he showed signs of lethargy, but it wasn't apparent how sick he was.

"They really do die quickly and there was nothing we could do," he said. Braden added: "It's a really sad moment for us, but we do believe we gave him a chance to be in the wild."

David Phillips, executive director of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, said Keiko's plight changed public perception of whether a whale could be returned to the wild. "We took the hardest candidate and took him from near death in Mexico to swimming with wild whales in Norway."

Keiko's stardom came from the three Free Willy films, in which a young boy befriends a captive killer whale and coaxes him to jump over a sea park wall to freedom. That launched an ongoing £15 million drive to make Keiko the first orca truly returned to nature.

Information about Famous Orca - Keiko

Keiko (circa 1976 - 12 December 2003) was an orca which performed in the first of the three Free Willy movie.

Keiko was captured near Iceland in 1979 sold to the Icelandic aquarium in Hafnarfjörður. Three years later, he was sold to Marineland in Ontario, where he first started performing for the public and developed skin lesions indicative of poor health. He was then sold to Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City, in 1985.

The publicity from his role in Free Willy led to an effort by Warner Brothers Studio and schoolchildren around the world to find him a better home. Donations from the studio and Craig McCaw led to the establishment of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation in February 1995. With donations from the foundation, the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon spent over $7 million to construct facilities to return him to health with the hope of returning him to the wild. He was airlifted by UPS to his new home in January 1996, weighing 3500 kg (7720 pounds). During his years in Oregon, he gained over a ton in weight.

The plan to return him to the wild was a topic of much controversy. Some felt his years of domestication made such a return impossible. Nevertheless, the next step in the plan happened on 9 September 1998, when he was flown to Klettsvik Bay in Vestmannaeyjar in iceland. His day-to-day care became the responsibility of the Ocean Futures Society. He underwent training designed to prepare him for his eventual release, including supervised swims in the open ocean.

Keiko was released in July 2002. He traveled about 1400 km (870 miles) to the coast of Norway over a period of several days. In September, he followed a fishing boat to Halsa in Norway where he allowed fans to play with him and crawl over his back. His handlers soon thereafter enticed him to nearby Taknes Bay, hoping to discourage his interaction with humans.

He died suddenly on 12 December 2003, of pneumonia. He was 27 years of age, very old for a captive whale, but young for a wild one. Following requests from fans of the whale and its films, the Oregon Coast Aquarium held a memorial service for him on February 20th, 2004. 700 people attended the service at which the aquarium's veterinary chaplain said "Keiko was not one of our kind, but nonetheless was still one of us."