Keiko (aka 'Willy')
"Free Willy" was a 1993 movie about an unconventional friendship between a young boy and a captive orca that's forced to perform at a water park. In the movie, the title role was played by Keiko the orca (pictured), who really was captured from the wild as a young whale and brought to live at an aquarium in Iceland.
The movie's success created a wave of support for releasing Keiko back into the wild, and although that did eventually happen, it didn't produce a happy ending. Keiko died in 2003 at the age of 27, after coming down with pneumonia following his release.
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Comments
To say that Keiko's story was not a success and didn't have a "happy ending" is ludicrous. Yes, Keiko died at a somewhat younger age than his wild counterparts, but people have to consider the deplorable lif he was subjected to for the majority of his life, like being forced to live and perform in a tank in Mexico (not Iceland as suggested by the article) that was too small and too warm.
For all intents and purposes, Keiko's rehabilitation, his whole story in fact, was a complete.... More
No whale in captivity is a success...either for it or for humans. On the one hand captivity of wildlife reinforces our sense of dominance over the natural world...a wholly pathological notion to begin with. On the other, it shows the depth of what Richard Louv describes as "nature deficit disorder."
There is no good outcome. In general, once a wild animal has been captive for a period of time – inured to human-fed routines and "protective" medication – it loses the instinctive edge.... More
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