INTERVIEW - Willy may never be free says whale group
Date: 20-Sep-02
Country: NORWAY
Author: Inger Sethov
People-loving Keiko showed up in a narrow fjord in western
Norway early this month, six weeks after he was freed from a
pen in Iceland where trainers had spent three years and $20
million to make him fit for the oceans again.
"It could take a week, it could take forever" to re-adapt to
life in the wild, Dave Phillips, head of the U.S.-based Free
Willy Foundation, told Reuters in Oslo, where he was meeting
Norwegian fishery authorities to discuss Keiko's future.
Phillips said he and his team would do everything possible
to make the eight metre (26 ft) orca wild again - saying zoo
animals like dolphins, monkeys and gorillas had re-adapted.
Keiko was caught at about the age of two - male orcas can
live about 50 years.
Since his release, Keiko swam under satellite surveillance
some 1,400 km (870 miles) from the North Atlantic island of
Iceland to Norway, by an awkward coincidence the only nation
in the world that hunts whales commercially.
"When I heard he was heading for Norway, I was thinking 'oh
no'. When I heard he was in the fjord I said to myself,
'Tell me this is not happening'," Phillips said, however
stressing that local authorities had been "very supportive".
The roughly 24-year-old world-famous killer whale has
charmed locals in the Skaalvik fjord where officials of the
small Halsa municipality are lobbying to keep the whale as a
tourist attraction.
Phillips expressed enthusiasm about west Norwegian fjords as
a new home for Keiko and was more sceptical about north
Norway, a bastion of whaling where some local fishers say
that Keiko could wreck their nets and tear open fish farms.
On the other hand, Keiko has greater chances of meeting
fellow whales in the north, where whale watching is a big
tourist attraction. Groups of killer whales travel up and
down the coast chasing their favourite dish - herring.
IDENTITY CRISIS?
Maybe Keiko could even reunite with his family. "We think he
is Icelandic - that's where he was captured, but he could
well be Norwegian," Phillips said. "Orcas travel a lot."
Keiko was originally caught in a net off Iceland as part of
the North Atlantic island's industry of exporting killer
whales to amusement parks around the world.
His behaviour and 'language', which varies from one killer
whale group to another, show most similarities to Icelandic
orcas, but his family could have travelled to Norway in the
22 years that he has been away, Phillips said.
His next home after Iceland was Canada, before he was moved
to an aquarium in Mexico City, where he spent most of his
life. He stopped in transit in Oregon and was transported
back to Iceland on a U.S. Air Force C-17 airplane.
"He's got a lot of stamps in his passport," Phillips said.
For millions of children, Keiko is better known as Willy. He
got the name Keiko after a name contest in Mexico.
Contestants apparently knew the name can mean "enlightened
child" or "lucky one" in Japanese and ignored the fact that
it is a girl's name.
"The movie script was made before they even found Keiko and
the role name was Willy. That's Hollywood," Phillips said.
The 1993 movie "Free Willy", about a 12-year-old boy's fight
to save a captured whale, prompted the campaign for his
release.
Phillips said he believed that Keiko knew he was a whale
despite a turbulent background and having humans as friends.
"If a dolphin or a whale looks in the mirror, they know it's
them they are looking at. They are self-aware animals," he
said, however, admitting that Keiko "has a thing about
kids".
He once helped a child who had fallen in the pool, using his
nose to lift the child back up to the surface.
"He is extremely gentle and friendly," Phillips said, but he
would not recommend anyone to get too close. Television
footage of children riding on Keiko's back were shown
worldwide just after he showed up in Norway.
Phillips warned parents: "Not a very good idea. Keiko i
