- OSLO (AP) -- Keiko, the killer
whale star of the Free Willy movies has died, his caretakers said early
Saturday morning.
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- The whale, which was 27 years old, died after the sudden
onset of pneumonia in the Taknes fjord in Norway on Friday afternoon. His
animal-care specialist, Dane Richards, said the disease struck the cetacean
fairly quickly.
-
- "He exhibited some signs of lethargy and lack of
appetite," Mr. Richards said early Saturday morning.
-
- Mr. Richards said Keiko's illness was sudden and veterinarians
had monitored his progress but the whale died quickly.
-
- "We checked his respiration rate and it was a little
irregular...he wasn't doing too well," he said. "Early in the
evening, he passed away."
-
- 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 $500,000 (U.S.) a month.
-
- Keiko was released from Iceland in July 2002. He swam
straight for Norway on a 1,400-kilometre trek that seemed to some a search
for companionship. He turned up near the village Halsa in late August or
early September 2002. He allowed fans to pet and play with him, even crawl
on his back, becoming such an attraction animal-protection authorities
imposed a ban on approaching him.
-
- Nick Braden, a spokesman of the Humane Society of the
United States, said veterinarians gave Keiko antibiotics after he showed
signs of lethargy but it wasn't apparent how sick he was.
-
- "They really do die quickly and there was nothing
we could do," he said. He called it "a really sad moment"
but added that they could believe that they gave the whale "a chance
to be in the wild."
-
- Keiko was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to the
marine park industry. 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.
-
- The $20-million drive to free him was started in 1993,
after he was found ailing in a Mexico City aquarium.
-
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