This essay originally appeared in the March 2004 issue of Change Magazine
Free at Last….Free at Last?
The Legacy of Keiko
by Audrey Schwartz Rivers, MS
As a legend, he loomed large, literally at about 6 tons and nearly 24 feet long. As with so many heroes, he died too young, although at 27 years old, one of the oldest whales to survive captivity. A denizen of the deep, he forever remains buried in the Earth, close to the humans he loved and who loved him.
Keiko the orca whale (a.k.a. “Free Willy”) died as 2003 waned, a victim of acute pneumonia and competing agendas. A victim of human cruelty and greed, Keiko became a symbol of good intentions and the human-animal bond gone awry. Now, at last, he remains forever free. Or does he?
Keiko’s story inspires myth — and movies. Once upon a time, 1979 to be exact, a two-year-old orca calf swam with its mother in frigid Atlantic waters near Iceland. One day, the bad guys came, violently abducting him flaying and crying, into 23 years of captivity in a succession of deplorable concrete prisons, where he was forced to entertain his captors for food. Ironically named Keiko, or Japanese for “Lucky One,” he was purchased by a Mexico City amusement park. Imprisoned in a tank too small, too shallow, too warm, and too lonely for an orca, Keiko developed a skin lesions and lost precious muscle tone. He could barely hold breath underwater, a necessary survival skill for whales. His proud dorsal fin drooped and he spent days gnawing his teeth down on concrete walls while swimming in obsessive little circles.
But in true “Lana Turner” tradition, Keiko become an accidental Hollywood star. In 1993, Warner Brothers Studios cast Keiko in “Free Willy,” the story about a captive orca in a deplorable marine park and the boy who sets him free. The movie, plus its two sequels and video sales, grossed nearly $200-million (topped by another fish-finds-freedom-flick “Finding Nemo”) became a surprise hit, especially with children worldwide. The studio tacked on a public service save-the-whales message, but the public clamored not just to save the whales, but one in particular — Willy!
Nonprofits formed, corporations contributed, scientists investigated, celebrities endorsed. Never had a captive whale been rehabilitated and returned to the wild. [1] Here was a true Cinderella ending. Click ruby flippers. There’s no place like home.
Wildness connotes freedom and vistas uninhabited by humans. Wildness also signifies autonomy as well as anonymity. Keiko knew neither. Instead, he was a celebrity. He morphed into the poster cetacean of people, groups and sponsors with the most humane and ecological intentions. Like the hero of the short-lived Saturday morning “Free Willy” cartoon, Keiko was recruited fight cyborgs and eco-villans. Keiko became merchandise and everyone harpooned him for their share.
Michael Jackson, who wrote and sang the “Free Willy” movie themes, offered him a home in Neverland. Aquariums worldwide vied to host his new and improved domicile while scientists coveted him for hands-on research. The Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, Keiko’s legal guardian, branded him “the most famous whale in the world” and marketed “Keiko Adoption Kits” (now called “Keiko Legacy Kits”) to pay for his care. Warner Brothers, who never paid Keiko a herring in residuals, donated $2 million for the good publicity thus generated. Millionaire telecommunications mogul Craig McCaw invested $3 million a year for Keiko’s upkeep after swimming with the orca, until McCaw’s stock tanked in 2001 and he pulled the plug. “Free Willy” conspiracy theories abounded on the Internet, including one proposing an evil Sea World secretly funded Keiko’s rescue effort to prove Delphinidae liberation impossible.
In 1996, UPS flew Keiko free of charge to his specially built transitional tank at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, where he swam in cold sea water for the first time since infancy. His sores healed while he learned to catch live fish, to play with toys and even to watch TV. The Oregon Coast Aquarium thrived as well. More than a million new visitors a year came to ogle Keiko, and he eagerly returned their attention. The Aquarium honored Keiko with his own Web site, complete with live “orca-cam.” In fact, the Aquarium became so concerned about Keiko’s welfare (that is, their own) that they sued to stop Keiko’s eventual return to his native Iceland.
Keiko free at last in North Atlantic (by permission of the Keiko Foundation)
In 1998, a US Air Force C-17 cargo plane ferried the 10-thousand pound whale halfway around the world to a bay off Iceland’s coast. Against a rocky cliff backdrop, Keiko could fluke slap and breach to his heart’s content without concrete confinement. Keiko began an Olympian conditioning schedule to prepare for transition to the sea. Handlers led him on regular unleashed jogs behind a research boat to socialize him with marine life. The first time Keiko spotted wild orcas, he probably felt like the new kid in the school. He startled and darted for the safety of his bay. But, in the summer 2002, he regularly hung with the gang in open water. Keepers thought Willy was finally free.
Two months and 1500 miles later, Keiko staged a dramatic comeback in the village of Halsa, Norway, to the delight of children and the dismay of scientists. Once again, Keiko performed tricks, allowed children to ride his back, mugged for cameras and, otherwise, spawned a local tourist industry. Ironically, Norway remains one of the few nation that still hunts whales despite an international ban. [2] One pro-whaling official suggested Keiko be ground into hamburger. Even the truculent environmental group Greenpeace deemed “Free Willy” efforts pointless. Animal advocate and former movie sex kitten Brigitte Bardot appealed to Norway’s royalty to intervene on her acting colleague’s behalf. The Miami Seaquarium petitioned the Federal government to “rescue” Keiko and display him with their orca Lolita who, not so coincidentally, is a target of animal liberators. [3] An animal psychic affirmed a conflicted Keiko felt caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Rival villages along Norway’s coasts wrangled for the whale. Norwegian officials finally instituted a no-swim zone around Keiko and approved relocation to an ice-free fjord, where he would be free to come and go as he pleased.
Scientists said the fuss stressed Keiko, who also caught a “cold” and was given antibiotics — a healthcare benefit not afforded truly wild cetaceans. In December 2003, much to his caretakers’ surprise, Keiko suddenly exhibited lethargy and labored breathing, beached himself and died. Grief-stricken, the team buried their protégé along the shoreline of Taknes Bay, rather than tow him out to sea, the normal resting place for wild orcas.
Even in death, Keiko remained controversial. Bureaucrats kvetched about lack of proper burial permits. Health officials labeled Keiko toxic waste and a danger to citizens. Even Rush Limbaugh denigrated Keiko as a lousy “symbol of freedom.”
Unlike an orca, Nature is not so black and white. If anything, Keiko taught us that humans cannot always fix what we break. Keiko also demonstrated that the line separating the holy grail of science and anthropomorphism is very finite indeed. In pursuit of empirical rigor, scientists seek an absolute taxonomy of animals, but the lay public viewed Keiko as an individual, with unique personality and feelings. Perhaps, fans truly extended Keiko more independence than did scientists, who considered his continuing interest in humans merely unnatural “imprinting” not mutual admiration. In the end, even the researchers could not rend the human-animal bond, and buried their test subject as they would a friend.
Naysayers deemed the 10-year, $20 million “Free Willy” experiment a failure. However, such assumptions depend on how “freedom” is defined. If solely to ensure “Free Willy” a movie-scripted, happily-ever-after life in the wild, the project fell short. Instead, if the effort gave a sentient being “free will,” then Keiko died in freedom.
For freedom embodies more than escape from captivity. Freedom demands choice — freedom to choose where to live, where to go, with whom to associate. Until Keiko returned to open water, humans always decided for him — stealing him from his family, training him to perform, and even procuring his release. When Keiko joined an orca pod, traveled to Norway, and later sought human interaction again — on his own terms — only then was he completely free at last.
The next year, hundreds of children gathered at Keiko’s final resting place to mark his grave with cairn stone memorial. Children throughout the world had offered their allowances, held bake sales and washed cars to fund Keiko’s freedom. In the end, children remain Keiko’s most promising legacy. Of all the so-called “Free Willy” benefactors, children alone acted purely from love. Only children rallied around the movie’s message, “How far would you go for a friend?” and sought to “Free Willy” with pennies not politics, affection not agenda, mercy not marketing. United by empathy and compassion, children proved Keiko’s best hope. And ours.
NOTES:
1] Since Keiko, two known orca whale reintroductions by humans have been attempted and only one, Springer in 2002 has been successful. Currently, advocates seek to rehabilitate and release two new captive whales, Lolita (a whale in Miami’s Seaquarium since wild capture in 1970) and Morgan, an orca currently rehabbing at a facility in The Netherlands. For more information see the Orca Network
2] Norway and Iceland continue to conduct commercial whaling. Japan hunts whales for what it calls “research purposes.” Many aboriginal peoples hunt whales as part of their cultural heritage and substance living. See Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
Japan’s annual culling of wild bottle-nosed dolphins for food and captive sales was notoriously exposed in the 2009 documentary The Cove.
3] For more information about Lolita
PHOTO CREDIT:
Keiko photo with permission of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation (2004)
LINK:
For more information about Keiko, visit the official Free Willy-Keiko Foundation site
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