Movie star whale Keiko dies

The Globe and Mail ^ | Dec 12, 2003 | Associated Press

[Clinging Bitterly]

Oslo — Keiko, the killer whale star of the Free Willy movies has died, his caretakers said early Saturday morning.

The whale, which was 27 years old, died after the sudden onset of pneumonia in the Taknes fjord in Norway on Friday afternoon. His animal-care specialist, Dane Richards, said the disease struck the cetacean fairly quickly.

“He exhibited some signs of lethargy and lack of appetite,” Mr. Richards said early Saturday morning.

Mr. Richards said Keiko's illness was sudden and veterinarians had monitored his progress but the whale died quickly.

“We checked his respiration rate and it was a little irregular...he wasn't doing too well,” he said. “Early in the evening, he passed away.”

Keiko, which means “Lucky One” in Japanese, 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 $500,000 (U.S.) a month.

Keiko was released from Iceland in July 2002. He swam straight for Norway on a 1,400-kilometre trek that seemed to some a search for companionship. He turned up near the village Halsa in late August or early September 2002. He allowed fans to pet and play with him, even crawl on his back, becoming such an attraction animal-protection authorities imposed a ban on approaching him.

Nick Braden, a spokesman of the Humane Society of the United States, said veterinarians 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. He called it “a really sad moment” but added that they could believe that they gave the whale “a chance to be in the wild.”

Keiko was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to the marine park industry. 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.

The $20-million drive to free him was started in 1993, after he was found ailing in a Mexico City aquarium

[Clinging Bitterly]

Keiko spent a few years at the Oregon Coast Aquarium at Newport. A lot of people spent a lot of time and money trying to rehabilitate him to live independently in the wild, but had been unsuccessful. It seems his saga is over.

Dave in Eugene

[FBD]

I saw him at Newport. He was an absolute cash bonanza for the aquarium, and Newport. Too bad they let him go. He would probably still be swimming around that big tank, warm and happy, and enjoying all the attention he was getting. But now he has sadly assumed ocean temperature.

[Tamzee]

Ouch :-( We're planning a trip to either Florida or CA to go to Seaworld and were talking about it the other day. My kids and I then got to talking about Keiko and wondering how he was doing... they loved "Free Willy".

[July 4th]

Keiko, the killer whale star of the Free Willy movies has died



More whale, anyone?

[KantianBurke]

His handlers there prepared him for the wild, teaching him to catch live fish in an operation that cost $500,000 (U.S.) a month.

Damn! PLEASE someone tell me that such a cost was NOT picked up by the US taxpayer!!!

[Tall_Texan]

Whales get pnuemonia?? Who knew? You would have thought that, after hanging out around frozen ice caps, such things coulgn't happen to them.

R.I.P.

[cherry]

I think it was a private enterprise that paid for his upkeep......

personally, I think human needs are more important than keeping unhappy whales in a place where they don't want to be...

this story is a little misleading.....from what I have read/heard it was very difficult for the handlers to get Keiko to do much of anything in the wild...they kept him in cages for the longest time.....

bad enough to capture a young whale for the aquarium, but why make him transfer to a totally new environment.....he was healthy and content and safe where he was at....

[PLMerite]

Free at last!


Sorry.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> He was an absolute cash bonanza for the aquarium, and Newport. Too bad they let him go.

The aquaruim's official position was that they wanted him returned to the wild as much as anybody else, but accusations were made here & there that they really wanted to keep him there, for the money. Being ever the cynic, I tended to believe those accusations. But it wasn't their call, there was a seperate organization that directed his care and all of his movements. The aquarium did have their own people who claimed he was still too sickly to move right up to the time he was flown to Iceland. Dunno - maybe there was something to all that.

We had taken regular trips to the aquarium before the Keiko days, and found it rather pleasant. They had a steady flow of visitors but it really is an expensive place to run, and they were strugging. Having Keiko there saved the place, at least for the time, but they have seen a bit of trouble lately.

It's supposed to be a non-profit, and it's run by a board and general manager. After the whale's departure, they lauched an expensive remodel project on the space he formerly occupied. In the past year, it was learned that the general manager had floated loans to pay some of the construction cost. The board didn't know about the loans, which were taken out, it seems, so the board would not know the cost of the project had been overrun. They learned when they came due and there wasn't money to pay them.

(you might already know all of that, I neglected to check your locale so I don't know if you are in the area)

[sushiman]

Crying in my kujira sashimi ...

[beaversmom]

Very sad to hear about the whale. I wonder if he would have
been alive today had they kept him in captivity. Too bad no
one could speak whale to ask him where he would have rather have been.

[thesummerwind]

Keiko, which means “Lucky One” in Japanese

-- luck ran out, as it does for all living creatures, eventually.

R.I.P.

[Clinging Bitterly]

The millions that were spent on him probably would have done better for the many (orcas) than it did for the one, but I think you're right that tax money wasn't spent here, and I don't have a problem with folks spending their own money on something like that if it's their choice.

The whale hardly knew life in the wild, he had been totally uncaged for the last few years, and he did travel on his own from Iceland to Norway, but was again drawn to the harbor and it's humans, who's behavior was probably more familiar and predictable to him.

I think 27 years is an unusually short life for an orca, but a good portion of that life was spent in an environment that was essentially toxic. There's probably a reason the beasts are usually found in cold water, and it is said that fin was permanently bent over because his tank in Mexico was not deep enough to keep his whole body underwater any other way.

The aquarium in Newport was probably a bit more comfortable, but it was not designed for lifelong habitation - it was built rather quickly and intended to last only long enough to provide temporary care & feeding while they tried to get him up to normal body weight & treated a couple of other ailments. A lot of the people who paid to see him there were probably disappointed to not find him jumping through hoops, but only catch brief glimpses if he happened to swim by the two small windows under the deep end of his tank.

[thesummerwind]

bad enough to capture a young whale for the aquarium, but why make him transfer to a totally new environment.....he was healthy and content and safe where he was at....

Very true! Well said.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> More whale, anyone?

Well hopefully they'll find a "safe and sane" way to dispose of the body. Dynamite doesn't work as well as one might think at first blush.

[Lancey Howard]

He will be missed.
Rest in peace, my friend.

[dougherty]

Jacko will be upset.

[SouthernFreebird]

LOL....

[Joe 6-pack]

"Jacko will be upset."

I think at the moment, he's got bigger fish to fry...er, I mean, his hands are full!

[Johnny_Cipher]

Pass the wasabi, please. Yum.