Keiko, by any objective measure, made unprecedented progress
last year in his gradual reintroduction to the wild. Once
escorted outside his Icelandic sea pen last summer, like he had
been every summer since 2000, the captive orca learned to
forage on wild fish during his many weeks in the open ocean.
This, from an orca who has been fed by human hands for more
than 20 years.
He also learned some basic navigation skills—if he hadn't
developed these skills, he could have easily wandered the North
Atlantic, far from land and any support systems—and he learned
a valuable lesson that might not come easy to a long-term
captive: how to live away from humans for prolonged
periods.
Keiko has spent the last few months in his winter home at
Taknes Bay, Norway, where his handlers have been feeding him
125 pounds of herring a day and taking him on daily "walks"
into the open ocean to keep him fit. But now, as the wild orcas
begin to arrive off the Norwegian coast in the coming weeks,
the question arises: What's the next step in Keiko's education
to becoming a wild orca again?
Dr. Naomi Rose, marine mammal scientist for The HSUS,
believes that even though Keiko spent 56 days in the waters of
the North Atlantic last summer, interacting with wild whales,
he still needs more experience interacting with his own kind.
"He still needs to learn some more social skills," the
scientist notes. "It's hard to read really what's going on
there, but since he hasn't yet hooked up with a pod, even on
the fringe, I guess that means he still needs to learn a thing
or two."
Keiko will have plenty of opportunities to learn these
lessons as the wild orcas begin to follow the schools of
herring through Norway's south-central fjords. The Keiko
Project staff, which is stationed at Taknes Bay to monitor the
whale daily, has established contact with the operators of
fishing vessels and ferry boats, so that they will contact the
Keiko team whenever they spot wild orcas in the area.
Once spotted, the Keiko team will follow the protocols from
previous seasons at the orca's former home base in Iceland. The
handlers will crank up the boat and escort Keiko out into the
open sea where he can interact with the wild orcas. The
protocol proved wildly successful last year in Iceland; in
July, Keiko separated from his walk boat and spent the next few
weeks traversing the open waters of the North Atlantic, often
near orcas or other whales and dolphins. It was the longest
amount of time he had ever spent away from humans since he was
first captured in 1979.
When Keiko turned up in Norway, more than 1,000 miles away,
Keiko Project staff as well as Dr. Lanny Cornell, Keiko's
veterinarian, assembled there and began tests to determine the
orca's health. Cornell declared that Keiko's "physical
condition was robust, and he showed no signs of weight
loss."
Cornell further stated, "Based on my professional veterinary
experience, had Keiko not been able to feed himself over this
56-day period (in the wild), I would have expected to observe
significant decreases in physical activity...an absence of deep
diving, and signs of disorientation. No such conditions were
observed."
"Keiko is the first captive orca ever returned to the wild,"
says Dave Phillips, founder and president of the Free
Willy/Keiko Foundation, which is jointly managing the project
with The HSUS to return Keiko to the wild. "The effort has
challenged the assumption that the captive theme parks provide
the best future for captive whales. Keiko has had a far
brighter future than he ever would have had in captivity. More
than 20 orcas have died in captivity in the decade since we
began working with Keiko."
As before, the Keiko Project team will monitor Keiko's
travels via satellite and VHF tags. The effort to free Keiko,
after all, is about more than freedom. It's also about science
and education.
"The more we learn about the process of reintroducing a
captive whale to the wild, the more we will be able to help
similar animals in the future," says The HSUS's Rose. "You have
to remember: This sort of reintroduction campaign has never
been undertaken before. The information we collect here could
be very valuable for future campaigns to free captive orcas.
It's a hugely important project—for Keiko and for all those
other orcas who still suffer in captivity."
You can support Keiko:
Donate to
the Keiko Project.
