Willy, free at last
Readers of Island Journal may recall my 2001 story on Keiko, the whale star of the 1993 movie “Free Willy,” who trainers were trying to reintroduce to the wild after a lifetime in captivity. Keiko’s story came to an end in Norway Dec. 12, when his handlers discovered him lying dead on the rocky shores of the fjord where he was penned for the winter.
The 27-year old orca probably died of pneumonia, according to the San Francisco-based Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, the non-profit organization that had been overseeing his care and reintroduction. Officials quickly cordoned off the steep cow pasture that provided access to the area and the body was buried in the middle of the night on Dec. 14 with no prior announcement.
By chance, I was one of the last U.S. reporters to visit Keiko, who spent most of my two-hour visit napping like some giant log off the end of the float where his handlers fed him 40 kilos of frozen herring each day. It was a quiet morning for the world-famous whale, whose sea pen was located on the shores of a spectacularly beautiful fjord near Halsa, in western Norway. The summer crowds of fans and well-wishers had gone, apart from a small herd of dairy cows, chomping away on the lush green grass in the adjacent meadow.
While I interviewed his American handler on the shore, Keiko woke up from time to time to rub his back against the hull of a 30-foot fishing boat moored nearby, causing it to rock wildly at its mooring. Then, with a loud, satisfied exhalation, he’d return to sleep.
But while Keiko dozed, controversy swirled around him, as scientists, animal rights advocates, and present and former handlers argued over whether the six-ton killer whale belonged with people or in the wild.
Some of Keiko’s past trainers thought that the nine-year, $20 million project to free him had failed and that he belonged back in a marine park setting. A leading Norwegian whale scientist had even called for him to be euthanised, triggering a barrage of angry letters and death threats from Keiko’s many supporters. Meanwhile, officials at the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation declared the project a success, pointing to Keiko’s abortive six-week stint in the open ocean, during which he swam from Iceland to Norway and began giving children rides on his back.
But the fact was Keiko died neither a captive nor truly free, living in a halfway house of sorts. To protect him from fans, fishing vessels and other hazards, he spent most of his time in a netted-off section of Taknes fjord, although his handlers took him on regular “walks” around the surrounding fjords with their boat, which he was trained to follow.
The nets also kept Keiko away from local salmon farms, because the densely-packed fish inside them would panic at the mere presence of a killer whale, resulting in big losses for the farm owners. Keiko had also gotten into difficulties when wandering off on his own, venturing into busy harbors and, on one occasion last winter, becoming trapped under pack ice.
“He can’t really be a wild animal if he acts this way,” said local electrician Svein Karsnes, one of the first people to encounter Keiko when he unexpectedly swam into the area from Iceland one year ago. Karsnes’s eldest daughter, Marianna, then 12, swam with Keiko, and even sat on his back, after the whale followed their neighbor’s boat home from open water. “Keiko likes people,” he added, as Marianna nodded in agreement. “He likes people.”
But while he clearly enjoyed interacting with people, Keiko had also learned a great deal about life outside the confines of a marine park pool, surprising critics of the controversial effort to free him.
Captured off Iceland in 1979 at age two, Keiko had spent much of his life in captivity at a Mexico City amusement park. There he lived in a tiny pool filled with overly warm, chlorinated water and suffered from ulcers, skin lesions, and other health problems. There he landed the starring role in “Free Willy,” a film in which a small boy helps a killer whale escape the clutches of a cruel marine park owner.
But while the fictional Willy escaped at the end of the film, Keiko remained in Mexico City, growing sicker by the month. After a series of media reports in 1993 and 1994, the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation was created, receiving generous backing from Nextel founder Craig McCaw and his wife, Wendy. The Foundation flew Keiko to Oregon, where he was rehabilitated, then to Iceland in September 1999, where they hoped to reintroduce him to the wild.
In Iceland, Keiko lived in a netted off bay and was taken out on ocean “walks” in the hopes he would meet and socialize with a pod of wild killer whales. His stamina increased and he learned to dive and swim long distances, although he showed only tepid interest in hunting for his food.
But by the spring of 2002, the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation was in crisis. Keiko was costing nearly $400,000 a month to feed and care for in Iceland, but McCaw, the Foundation’s primary patron, was scaling back his support. Many of Keiko’s handlers left the project, believing Keiko had made his choice and preferred human contact to life in the wild.
But in the midst of the institutional crisis, Keiko apparently decided to make his move. While on an ocean walk on July 16, 2002 he swam off with a large pod of wild orcas. He made landfall, alone, on September 1, near the Karsnes family’s waterside farm, 900 miles away in western Norway, and was soon entertaining hundreds of Norwegian fans who traveled from all over the country to interact with him. While he’d failed to stick with his fellow orcas, he also hadn’t lost any weight during his journey, indicating that he must have foraged for food.
Keiko spent the remainder of his days in his sea pen, which the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation operated on a budget of $400,000 per year, about what they had been spending each month in Iceland. His handlers kept him fed, exercised, and partially insulated from would-be fans, pending the hoped-for arrival of a pod of killer whales in the area.
But while Keiko clearly enjoyed his halfway house life and, until just prior to his death, was far healthier then he had been in captivity, he was never a good candidate for the unprecedented reintroduction effort, having spent most of his life amongst people. His experience suggests that orcas should not be kept in captivity but, if they are, it may not be so easy – or ethical – to return them to the wild.
Colin Woodard is the author of Ocean’s End: Travels Through Endangered Seas. He lives in Portland and maintains a website at colinwoodard.com.