They arrive almost every day to spend time with the world's most famous whale. They show up in and around Taknes Bay, Norway, Keiko's current home, hoping that he'll join them for a little interactive fun. It's just too bad they're tourists, not whales.
Keiko continues to be in good spirits this spring—he goes on daily "walks" in the Northern Atlantic and dines on large amounts of hand-fed herring—even as he continues to wait on his fellow orca travelers, who so far have not even ventured close to Taknes Bay.
Historically, orcas annually visit the Norwegian fjords from late winter to late summer, but this year, the few whale pods that have been spotted were located far off-shore, beyond the reach of the Keiko Project team. The lack of orcas has stumped some locals in Norway, but The HSUS's marine mammal scientist Naomi Rose believes it could be a result of global warming, which, among other things, changes water currents.
When water currents shift, Rose said, the herring schools may alter their movements, which in turn would alter the movements of their predators, namely orcas like Keiko. Hence, Keiko has been a fairly lonely whale this spring.
At least when it comes to other whales.
Tourists continue to flock to Taknes Bay to get a glimpse of the star of Free Willy, the 1993 family film that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a special-edition DVD. At first, many of these gawkers were flouting the Norwegian government regulation, enacted in September 2002, that forbids the public to come within 50 meters of the orca. They would float up to the buoy line that separates them from Keiko, and try to get the whale's attention. Sometimes, Keiko actually would take off with the tourists, forcing the Keiko Project team to follow in its own boat.
But Keiko Project staffers have been working with the Norwegian media to ask that people visit the whale by land, not sea. The results have been encouraging. A good number of people—one estimate puts it between 30 to 40 people a day—now visit Keiko via the shoreline, where they can actually talk with a Norwegian-speaking member of the project team for the latest news on the orca.
When not dealing with the general public, the Keiko Project team has been monitoring the whale on a couple of fronts. First, they have kept a close eye on the minor injuries that Keiko suffered when he crashed through the ice in a shallow fjord where he had wandered on a pitch-black night in mid-February. The injuries, according to Keiko Project director Colin Baird, have healed nicely on their own.
What's more, Baird said, the ice incident was a "tremendous experience for him to learn" about ice. "I don't think he's ever seen ice before," he added.
Second, the team has been monitoring Keiko's movements from Taknes Bay. For all intents and purposes, Keiko is currently free. He has the ability to leave the fjord whenever he pleases. The project team, of course, follows him whenever he leaves, but team members are also very interested in learning what attracts the orca's attention—what causes him to want to leave the fjord, in other words. So far, Baird said, they have discovered no discernable pattern to Keiko's movements.
As the spring begins to shift into summer, the Keiko Project team remains hopeful that whales will return to the Norwegian fjords. The window of opportunity, after all, is still wide open. Historically, orca pods wander through the area through August. There is still plenty of time for Keiko to run off with one of them, much like he did last summer when, for a few weeks at least, Keiko was free of all human bonds.
