Atlantica - 01.06.2001, Page 41

A T L A N T I C A 39
Oregon. With a budget of USD 500,000,
they hired four full-time trainers to help
Keiko conquer his sordid past. When
Keiko’s jet landed, children and their
parents lined the street to welcome him.
It was a daring, some thought hare-
brained idea to consider returning Keiko
to the high seas after so many years in
captivity. The marine park industry, not
surprisingly, warned Keiko would die.
Animal advocates cheered.
“Keiko would be ecstatic to be placed
back in the ocean where he came from,”
enthused his veterinarian, Dr. Lanny
Correll.
During the next two years, attendance
at the aquarium skyrocketed. Within a
year, Keiko gained 1,300 pounds, his
maladies disappeared, and his coat bris-
tled with new vigour. His muscle tone
was vastly improved, and he was alert
and responsive to his trainers.
“He awakened from the mental torpor
of his past ten years,” crowed a Keiko
spokeswoman. “We are optimistic he
can regain the skills that will allow him
to flourish in the sea.”
Despite the dramatic improvement,
Keiko’s instincts remained dormant. He
rejected live food, bringing it back to his
trainers on whom he depended for
restaurant-quality frozen fish. No one
knew if Keiko could see or could echolo-
cate, an ability whales use in order to
hunt.
At Newport, Keiko swam and played
inside a specially-built, two-million-gal-
lon tank, with an underwater viewing
window for his thrilled fans; while his
trainers monitored his progress. Then,
in 1997, the aquarium closed Keiko’s
tank when he began to display killer
whale tendencies, butting his head
against the viewing windows.
“It was a very good sign of aggres-
sion, but it needed to be refocused,”
said Beverly Hughes, the president of
the Free Willy Foundation, which mor-
phed into Ocean Futures Society.
KEIKO’S JOURNEY
Ocean Futures Society announced it
was time to return Keiko to the North
Atlantic; first to an ocean pen and with-
in a year or two, release. An ugly battle
ensued between Newport and Ocean
Futures. The aquarium warned he
would perish in nature; Ocean Futures
charged the aquarium was simply wor-
ried over the loss of their cash cow.
And so, with an invitation from the
Icelandic government, Keiko came to
Klettsvík on 10 September, 1998. He
crossed the Atlantic on a US Navy C-17
cargo jet with a member of Ocean
Futures Society, three veterinarians and
five animal specialists. The USD 370,000
tab was picked up by Ocean Futures.
After a nine-hour flight, Keiko arrived on
Heimaey in the Westman Islands, greet-
ed by cheering, waving children. The
press gushed over his dramatic appear-
ance in a special 32,000-pound tank.
Banners waved in the brisk air, greeting
him with ‘Velkomin Keiko’.
“Keiko captured the hearts and minds
of millions of children around the world
when they learned that Free Willy’s
happy ending was fiction. They truly
wanted Keiko to be free,” beamed
Cousteau, whose web site (oceanfu-
KEIKO
“He made contact with two whale
pods, but it didn’t take,” recalls Horton.
“When we turned the boat around to
return to Klettsvík, he was right behind
us. We’re hoping this year it will work.”
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