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Topic: Free Willy still not Free (Read 245 times)

darnchts
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Free Willy still not Free
« on: Aug 21^st, 2003, 7:38am »

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'Free Willy' Whale Doesn't Want to Be Free

By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer

TAKNES BAY, Norway - Keiko the "Free Willy" whale still doesn't want to be free. It's been about a year since Keiko was freed from his pen and swam straight back to human companionship. With the killer whale drawing 200 to 400 fans a day, the bay he calls home seems more like a low-budget "Keikoland" than an experiment in returning a captive orca to the wild.

To keep people from entering the water, Keiko's keepers posted a 24-hour guard and put up orange ropes with "no access" signs along the shore. Temporary nets span the bay to keep small boats out.

Local farmers charge 20 kroner (about $2.70) for parking in dirt lots with official-looking Keiko signs. Other signs point down a well-worn path through the trees to the world's most famous whale.

Under the rusted, corrugated roof of a waterfront shack used by Keiko's minders, Keiko T-shirts for sale sway in the wind.

"The perfect thing for us would be to be left alone," says Thorbjorg Valdis Kristjansdottir, a marine biologist who goes by the name "Tobba" and is one of the Hollywood star's four keepers.

But that's not happening, despite the remote, rural location of Taknes Bay.

"There is always somebody trying to get down to the water," says Tobba, a tall, blond Icelander whose fair complexion is burned red from hours in the sun watching over Keiko. "People come at all hours."

She says they even foiled a late-night attempt by two drunken Norwegian youths to steal the six-ton orca by leading him away with a small boat.

Keiko's stardom came from the three "Free Willy" films, in which a young boy befriends a captive killer whale and coaxes him to jump over a sea park wall to freedom.

That launched an ongoing $20 million drive to make Keiko the first orca truly returned to nature. Tobba and her teammates are attempting to integrate Keiko into a pod of wild killer whales.

Orcas that normally pass through the area did not come this year, depriving Keiko of contact with his wild kin. But Tobba says Keiko does tail slaps and jumps called "side breaches" used by orca to stun fish, "something he learned from wild whales."

To keep Keiko in shape, his caretakers take him on "walks," leading him around the fjords from a small boat at least three times a week.

Keiko, estimated to be 26 years old, was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to the marine park industry. The drive to free him started 10 years ago, after he was found ailing in a Mexico City aquarium.

Keiko, which means "Lucky One" in Japanese, 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 in an operation that cost about $500,000 a month. That amount now pays for a year of care, Free Willy Foundation founder and president David Phillips said in an email from California.

Keiko was released from Iceland in July 2002. He swam straight for Norway on a 870-mile trek that seemed to be a search for human companionship.

Keiko first turned up near the village of Halsa in late August or early September of 2002. 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.

In November, Keiko was coaxed to his new home at Taknes Bay, still in Halsa but handlers hoped farther from the crowds.

"We still get people showing up in bathing suits (wanting to swim with him)," says Tobba. Others expect a show, such as Keiko doing tricks for part of his daily ration of roughly 90 pounds of herring.

"When are the feeding times?" one visitor asked recently.

"No set times," responded Tobba for the hundredth, perhaps thousandth, time.

Keiko swam across the bay, turning on his back to reveal his white belly to the crowd, which gasps "Ooooooo."

Tobba winced at the sound, but 13-year-old Martine Vik was delighted. She wrote a seven-page school report on Keiko and orcas, and was seeing him for the first time.

"We don't go into the water to play with him. He's a big boy now," says Tobba afterward. However, because orcas are very social, they act as his family in the hopes that a real pod will someday accept him.

Skeptics have dismissed the project as hopeless, and at least one U.S. seaquarium has argued for having him returned to captivity.

Tobba says Keiko knows people are around, but seems to increasingly hide from them, a possible sign of progress.

He is already free to leave, within limits. Tobba says they brought him back in February after he vanished and turned up many kilometers (miles) away at a fish farm, something declared off-limits by Norwegian authorities.

And Keiko is still a novice at life in the wild. In February, he swam under ice for the first time, panicked and broke through, injuring his head.

"There is still a small abrasion there," says Tobba. "But he learned."

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darnchts
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #1 on: Aug 21^st, 2003, 7:42am »

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I have very mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I would love to see him free, but on the other hand, he has spent most of his life in captivity so it is all he knows. I just think that even if they get him to join a wild pod, that he will always seek out humans and he is at a very great risk of being killed especially as he enters Norwegian waters where they still kill whales. I kinda wish that they could have just built him a huge aquarium and allowed him to live out the rest of his life just peacefully without having to make him do tricks and such. The amount of money that has been spent on him to free him could have just been used to keep him happy, healthy and safe. Afterall, they don't release circus animals when they are done with them. Releasing back to the wild when they are so used to captivity is almost as stressful on them as it was to be captive I think. I wish there were easy answers here and I pray Keiko stays safe while they figure out what the answer is to be.

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azure
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #2 on: Aug 21^st, 2003, 10:04am »

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I agree, very mixed feelings

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Red
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #3 on: Aug 21^st, 2003, 6:52pm »

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This is a topic that hits hard here in Edmonton...at West Edmonton Mall here there were 5 dolphins when the dolphin lagoon opened back in the 80s, and there have been a few tragedies with them in the last few years...the original ones were/are over 20 years old at this point, but there were some problems with babies being born dead and natural deaths or the others...now Howard (the oldest male) is alone since Mavis (the last female) died a few weeks ago of natural causes...everyone is up in arms about wht to do about Howard now - should he be left there where he's comforatble and considers the trainers his family?...or should he be moved to a new place? there is no talk of bringing more dolphins in, but its a tough choice what to do about him...it's really dividing the city...sad Sad

...and this thing with Keiko just makes it hit home b/c Keiko considers humans as family at this point, just like the dolphins do

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darnchts
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #4 on: Aug 21^st, 2003, 6:55pm »

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very true Red. Of course it would have been best if they had never been moved from the wild but I have to think it is much more stressful at this time to change their lives. Howard considers those humans part of his pod just as Keiko does. If they had just been captured a few months before, I would be all for releasing them. I just think it is sad to do it now when they would be just as happy to live out the rest of their lives with what they know.

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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #5 on: Aug 21^st, 2003, 8:33pm »

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that's how i'm leaning ... why move him to a place where he doesn't fit - and will miss his "family"

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Pau
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #6 on: Aug 25^th, 2003, 10:26pm »

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well... its a mixed feeling really... but maybe conservationalists would like all animals to live in their natural habitats.. to remain as wild.... well it would be hard for the animal... but.. they have to be with their own kind, to be with a family of same kind and to be able to produce offsprings in their natural place...

well... that is very saddening that people would have to capture these animals from their natural habitats to keep them in captivity for shows and hobbies... then would give the animal another hardship to adjust on different habitats... Cheesy

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Red
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #7 on: Aug 25^th, 2003, 11:28pm »

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the dolphins at the mall here were used for more than just shows (although they did have those too I'll admit)...they had a lot of camps for kids to teach them about marine life and i think thats a great idea...if you can't afford to go to the coast or see them why not be able to expose kids - esp inner city kids - to things that they may never be able to experience and learn

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darnchts
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Re: Free Willy still not Free
« Reply #8 on: Aug 26^th, 2003, 2:30am »

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Unfortunately Keiko was caught up in the moment cause everyone fell in love with him in the movie. He had already been captured and contained years ago and therefore probably should have been kept in captivitiy I think. I think that the push to get him out of his hellhole and into a nice aquarium would have been sufficient. The animals already at Sea World and places like Sea World no longer know what it is like to be free and come to really love their human companions. Unfortuantely in a day where so many people do not honor animal life, we need such places to educate people and maybe to get some of them to understand the important role they take in keeping animals alive and well in their own habitat.
There are lots of programs out there with dolphins to work with kids who have special needs. I think as long as we continue to breed them in captivity and not take more from the wild, that maybe the good of such programs far outweigh the bad that they are in captivity. The most important thing is to have a better program of going out to all these places and doing unexpected inspections to insure that the animals are being taken care of and that their surroundings are suitable. JMHO

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