"Free Willy" star flooded in offers for retirement
Date: 13-Sep-02
Country: NORWAY
Author: Inger Sethov
Keiko's trainers said this week they were still hoping that the whale would some day be fit for the wild after more than 20 years in captivity. But many locals want the world-famous orca to stay on, helping boost tourism.
"Keiko is eight meters (yards) long and the fjord several kilometres (miles) long, so there is plenty of space for him here," said Lars Olav Lilleboe, coordinator between Keiko's monitoring team and local authorities in Halsa municipality, western Norway.
Authorities in cooperation with the monitoring team are expected to decide this week whether to try to lure him back to deep waters or retire him in a quiet fjord in Norway. Killer whales live at least 35 years.
"Offers are pouring in from people who want to give Keiko a new home," Lilleboe told Reuters, adding that the 1,750 Halsa population, many working in fish farming and agriculture, could need an extra attraction.
"It doesn't hurt with a few more tourists. Keeping Keiko here would be great," he said.
Curious crowds have rushed to the Skaalvik fjord in western Norway to see the people-loving animal.
BRAVES NORWAY WHALERS
But national fishery authorities, which have also received offers from locals around west Norway for Keiko to stay, see disadvantages to a whale as a tourist attraction in a nation often criticised for hunting whales.
"We reject any idea that has a commercial interest behind it," said spokesman Olav Lekve at Norway's Fishery Directorate. "Keiko should get the respect he deserves as a wild animal."
Norway, defying an international moratorium, is the only country in the world to hunt whales commercially. It kills minke whales for their meat, arguing that the stock is plentiful.
Keiko's monitoring team, which has tracked him since he was released from his pen in Iceland in July, is feeding him herring from a boat to make him move around, after he showed signs of fatigue over the weekend and was given antibiotics.
Millions of dollars were spent on preparing Keiko for the wild after the 1993 movie "Free Willy" prompted a campaign for his release. But he still seems to prefer human company to whales and experts say he may have become a cetacean misfit.