Keiko (earlier Siggi and Kago; – 12 December 2003) was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979. He portrayed Willy in the 1993 film Free Willy. In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of preparing Keiko for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27.
Early life
Keiko was captured near Reyðarfjörður, Iceland in 1979 at the approximate age of two and sold to the Icelandic Aquarium in Hafnarfjörður. At the time, he was named Siggi, with the name Kago given at a later date.
In 1982, he was sold to Marineland in Ontario, Canada. At this new facility, he first started performing for the public and developed skin lesions indicative of poor health and was also bullied by older orcas. Keiko was then sold to Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1985.
At Reino Aventura, he was given the name "Keiko", a feminine Japanese name that means "lucky one". At the time, he was only long and was housed in a tank intended for bottlenose dolphins.
Free Willy
Keiko became the star of the film Free Willy in 1993. The publicity from his role led to an effort by Warner Bros in order to find him a better home. The pool for the now orca was only deep, wide and long. He was housed with bottlenose dolphins, but no others of his own species. Keiko was underweight for his size, and the water temperature was often too warm, which contributed to various skin problems. Due to a papillomavirus infection, Keiko experienced skin outbreaks, first observed while he was housed in Ontario, Canada, prior to his transfer to Mexico City, which complicated both his candidacy for relocation and for eventual release into the wild.
Free Willy-Keiko Foundation
Outcry for Keiko's liberation arose from the film's credits containing a phone number for whale preservation that received hundreds of thousands of call-ins. Warner Brothers and Craig McCaw approached the International Marine Mammal Project for help, which in February 1995 established the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation. With donations from the foundation and millions of school children, the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon was given over $7 million to construct facilities to return him to health with the hope of eventually returning him to the wild. Reino Aventura donated Keiko to the Foundation. Before he left the amusement park in Mexico City, Keiko performed for the public for the last time, and was seen off by thousands of children, with more onlookers watching his overnight journey to the Mexico City International Airport. At the time he weighed about 7,700 pounds (3493 kg). A C-130 cargo plane donated by United Parcel Service (UPS) hauled Keiko to Newport, Oregon on 8 January 1996.
On arrival in Oregon Coast Aquarium, Keiko was housed in a new () concrete enclosure containing seawater. His weight had increased significantly by June 1997, to 9,620 pounds (4364 kg).
Re-introduction to the wild
The plan to return him to the wild was a topic of much controversy. Some felt his years of captivity made such a return impossible. Researchers in a scientific study later said attempts to return him to the wild were unsuccessful, but that monitoring him with radio and satellite tags was part of "a contingency plan for return to human care," which secured "the long-term well-being of the animal." Others considered his release misguided. The Norwegian pro-whaling politician Steinar Bastesen made international news for his statement that Keiko should instead be killed and the meat sent to Africa as foreign aid.
Nevertheless, the process of preparing Keiko for the wild began on 9 September 1998, when he was flown to Klettsvík, a bay on the island of Heimaey in Vestmannaeyjar, Iceland. UPS again participated in transport, this time by providing ground transportation to the nearby Newport Municipal Airport. Keiko was transported in a specialized container filled with enough saltwater to cover him and cooled with ice cubes. He was then transported by air in a C-17 Globemaster airplane loaned by the U.S. Air Force. Upon landing at Vestmannaeyjar Airport, the C-17 Globemaster aircraft suffered a landing gear failure causing over $1 million in damage, though Keiko was unharmed.