Atlantica - 01.06.2001, Side 39

A T L A N T I C A 37
cialist, is part of an international rotating
team of twenty specialists employed by
Ocean Futures. The team includes vet-
erinarians, divers, and caretakers.
Although visitors were allowed to see
Keiko upon his arrival in Iceland in 1998,
that no longer occurs. In an effort to
wean him from human dependency,
Keiko’s contact has been limited to staff,
who do their best to ignore him.
“People get in the way,” quips Horton.
The last time Keiko went public was 3
March, 2000, when the media and
Barbara Griffiths, the US Ambassador to
Iceland, observed Keiko move from his
original floating pen to one taking up
the entire Klettsvík Bay, the size of 20
football fields. With gale force winds of
100 miles per hour known to batter the
bay, a specially designed barrier net was
placed across the inlet. It’s 260 yards
long and 33 feet deep, anchored with
heavy chains and rock bolts.
“He seemed a bit overwhelmed and
only peeked out at first,” said an eyewit-
ness. “But eventually after 90 minutes of
coaxing by trainers, Keiko worked up the
courage to explore his new surround-
ings, accompanied by a trainer in a small
boat.”
A HAPPY ENDING?
Handlers monitor Keiko’s progress from
a walkway, which surrounds the pen and
on which two small buildings stand, pro-
viding a medical pool, food preparation
area, diving locker and generator room.
Horton says Keiko is in great shape
because of regular exercise sessions:
swimming, diving, jumping and rolling
to tone every part of his body for return
to the ocean. He’s gone from being able
to hold his breath for a little over three
minutes to sixteen.
Keiko communicates in the high-
pitched screech of whale speak. All
whales have their own unique dialects;
nobody knows the dialect used by
Keiko.
“He was with unrelated killer whales
at Marineland in Ontario, Canada, for
three years,” says Cousteau. “He proba-
bly picked up some speech dialects from
these animals as well as from the bot-
tlenose dolphins he lived with for ten
years in Mexico City.”
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