Keiko: Free Willy's Whale and the Question of What Freedom Means

Mexico City, 1985

Keiko ended up at Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City, after being passed through several aquariums in Iceland and Canada. By the time he arrived in Mexico, the situation was bad. The tank was roughly 100 feet long. Orcas in the wild travel up to 100 miles per day. The water temperature was 72 degrees Fahrenheit; orcas prefer water between 40 and 60 degrees. His skin had broken out in papillomavirus lesions. His dorsal fin was collapsed.

He performed shows twice a day. He had been there for seven years by the time Warner Bros. came looking for a whale to play Willy.

Free Willy, 1993

The film was a hit. At the end of the credits, a conservation hotline appeared on screen. Hundreds of thousands of children called it. The resulting campaign raised $20 million over three years. An Oregon aquarium agreed to take Keiko and begin a rehabilitation program. He arrived in Newport, Oregon in February 1996.

It was the first time in over a decade that his skin had been in cold water. The lesions healed. He gained weight. He learned to catch live fish again. The plan, which had seemed impossible when it started, was starting to look like it might work.

September 1998 — Home

A United States Air Force transport plane flew Keiko to Iceland, his country of origin, in September 1998. He was released into a netted bay off the Vestmannaeyjar islands, where he could swim in open water while still being monitored and fed. He was the first captive orca ever to be returned to open ocean.

Over the next four years, the team worked to teach him to follow wild pods. He made progress, but never fully joined one. In 2002, he swam 900 miles on his own to the coast of Norway, a journey that stunned the researchers. He found the fishing village of Halsa, approached boats, and let children pet him from the dock.

December 12, 2003

Keiko died in Taknes Bay, Norway. He was approximately 26 years old, a full lifespan for a male orca in captivity, and shorter than what he might have had in the wild. Wild pods had passed near him during his 18 months of freedom. He never joined them. The time alone had been too long. He didn't know how to be wild anymore.

He never went truly wild. But he finally went home.

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Sources

• Free Willy-Keiko Foundation records, 1993–2003.
• Ocean Futures Society, Jean-Michel Cousteau reporting on Keiko's Norway years.
• Oregon Coast Aquarium archives, Newport, Oregon.

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