Posted on 12/13/2003 4:46:24 AM PST by wallcrawlr
OSLO, Norway - Keiko, the killer whale made famous by the ``Free Willy'' movies, has died in the Norwegian fjord that he made his home after a multimillion dollar campaign failed to coax him back to the open seas.
The whale, who was 27, died Friday afternoon after the sudden onset of pneumonia in Taknes Bay, 370 miles northwest of the capital, Oslo. He was old for an orca in captivity, though wild orca live an average of 35 years.
David Phillips, executive director of the San Francisco-based Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, said Keiko had been in good health but started showed signs of lethargy and loss of appetite on Thursday.
``This is a long sad day for us,'' Phillips said.
Keiko was led to the remote Norwegian bay last year after he turned up in Norway, to the delight of local residents but the disappointment of his trainers who had hoped he would return to the wild after years in captivity.
One of his handlers, Dale Richards, also said Keiko died quickly. ``We checked his respiration rate and it was a little irregular ... he wasn't doing too well,'' Richards told The Associated Press. ``Early in the evening, he passed away.''
Keiko - which means ``Lucky One'' in Japanese - was captured in Iceland in 1979 and sold to the marine park industry.
Starting in 1993, the six-ton mammal starred in three ``Free Willy'' movies, a heartwarming box-office franchise from Warner Brothers in which sympathetic humans help set a long-captive killer whale free.
The drive for the real-life reintroduction of the movies' star started after he was found ailing in a Mexico City aquarium. The project - to reintegrate Keiko with a pod of wild killer whales - cost millions of dollars and stirred interest and ire worldwide.
Keiko 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.
Keiko was released from Iceland in July 2002, but he swam straight for Norway on a 870-mile trek that seemed to be a search for human companionship.
He first turned up near the village of Halsa in late August or early September of 2002. There, 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.
Keiko was later led to Taknes Bay, a clear, calm pocket of coastal water deep enough that it doesn't freeze in winter. Keepers fed him there, but he was free to roam and did, often at night.
He was equipped with a VHF tracking device that let his four handlers pinpoint his location provided he stayed within a range of about five miles.
Keiko's keepers said the whale seemed to adapt to living in the wild despite so many years in captivity, learning to slap his tail and do jumps called side breaches that are typically done to stun fish.
To keep Keiko in shape, his caretakers took him on ``walks,'' leading him around the fjords from a small boat at least three times a week.
Nick Braden, a spokesman of the Humane Society of the United States, said veterinarians gave Keiko antibiotics after he showed signs of lethargy Thursday, but it wasn't apparent how sick he was.
``They really do die quickly and there was nothing we could do,'' said he said.
Braden said ``it's a really sad moment for us, but we do believe we gave him a chance to be in the wild.''
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On the Net:
Keiko: http://www.aquarium.org/keiko/index.htm
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
In a way it was cruel to force him back into the wild after being domesticated.
Yep, the whale-huggers killed him. Of course, they'll never admit it.
It won't be hard to fill his shoes, as the big fellow didn't have any feet. But admirers worldwide say the whale of a movie star's heart will be missed.
Keiko, the aquatic star of the 1993 movie Free Willy whose real-life struggles to become a free-wheeling whale made him the world's most famous sea creature weighing at least five tons, was found dead Friday. He was 27, one of only two male orcas to surpass the quarter-century mark (mostly) in captivity.
The former film giant died in "his winter quarters," as the Norway Post (aka "the doorway to Norway") put it, a Norwegian fjord in the town of Halsa that Keiko had frequented for the past year.
Cause of death was thought be acute pneumonia. Keiko's private physician, also known as a vet, said the famously friendly big mammal was in "excellent" health until Thursday.
Halsa mayor Margrethe Saether said, per the Oslo newspaper, Aftenposten, that the coddled cetacean "initially seemed to have a cold." Keiko acted lethargic and lost his whale-sized appetite. By Friday night, he had beached himself at Halsa's local pier.
"I think this is downright sad," Saether said, according to Aftenposten.
The Free Willy Keiko Foundation, the nonprofit organization that led the often-fitful fight to return Keiko to open sea, celebrated, rather than mourned, the onetime Hollywood figure.
"Keiko was a champion; the most incredible whale," David Phillips, president and founder of the group said in a statement.
Born in the mid-1970s, the future movie-star mammal began life as a whale of modest means--no vet, no entourage, likely no name. In 1979, he was captured in waters near Iceland, installed in an aquarium and introduced to humans, two-legged primates who did thoughtful things for Keiko such as feed him lots and lots of fish.
The big break came in 1982, when he moved, or rather was taken, to Canada's Marineland in Ontario, and delighted audiences for the first time with a winsome whale act.
In 1985, Keiko was sold to a Mexican amusement park. Then, in 1993, the biggest break: A title role in a major motion picture.
Free Willy was the tale of Willy, a lowly amusement-park whale, who is befriended by a troubled young boy and encouraged to seek his fame and fortune on the high sea. Critic Roger Ebert called the scenes with the whale "very convincing," although Keiko shared the praise with the animatronic devices who eventually took over all acting chores in the franchise's two sequels.
Following the release of the first movie, activists argued that Willy's fin-and-blood portrayer deserved freedom, too. To that end, a United Parcel Service plane airlifted the hefty performer to an Oregon aquarium in 1996 in order to prepare Keiko for life on his own.
After nearly two years, Keiko continued to struggle with the concept of fishing, preferring to be hand fed by his helpful human friends. Undeterred, the Free Willy Keiko Foundation transported its charge to Iceland in 1998, this time, courtesy the U.S. Air Force.
Finally, in 2002, Keiko was deemed sufficiently self-sufficient and kicked out of the nest. He swam 870 miles on his lonesome before heading for a Norwegian inlet where local humans were more than happy to pet him and, of course, feed him.
At least one Norwegian whale expert suggested offing Keiko, but cooler heads prevailed in chilly Halsa, and the codependent creature became a beloved fixture.
The Humane Society of the United States called Keiko's misadventures a success story. "He came a long, long way and showed that returning captive whales to the wild is not simply a dream," Paul Irwin, the organization's president, said in a statement.
Burial plans were unclear. According to Aftenposten, Keiko, per custom, would either be hauled up to land, or "towed out to the open sea and slaughtered."
Happily, local officials told Reuters they would respect the wishes of Keiko's camp. Said a Norwegian fishing official to the wire service: "We understand that Keiko is special."
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