Editor's note: Paul G. Irwin, president emeritus of The Humane Society of the United States, shared his thoughts on why it was important to continue the fight to release Keiko, the captive orca who starred in the movie Free Willy, back into the wild. This is a republication of a letter first sent to HSUS members.
For the last several years, I have served on the board of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation and its successor, the Ocean Futures Society, headed by Jean-Michel Cousteau. Our goal has been to return a captive orca named Keiko, star of the movie Free Willy, to the wild. Among the many important lessons we have learned along the way is this: It is far easier to capture a whale than to return a whale to his natural home in the sea.
After seeing the movie, millions of people rallied around the cause of freeing Keiko from his very narrow confines in Mexico City. The Humane Society of the United States was significantly involved in moving him first to a far superior residence at the Oregon Coast Aquarium and finally to coastal Iceland, the waters from which he had been taken more than two decades earlier.
In Iceland, Keiko has enjoyed the highest quality of life ever afforded a captive marine mammal. He lives in the ocean, with the natural sea bottom below him, with fish and crustaceans and all the sounds of the ocean around him. No concrete walls mark his boundaries. He exercises not by performing tricks for a crowd but by swimming against waves in an ocean bay. He has spent most of the last two summers venturing into the open ocean, logging more than 1,000 miles.
Keiko has also been able to interact frequently with wild whales, an activity of no small importance because killer whales are social animals. They live for life in family groups called pods, where they frolic together and join in larger groups to socialize and feed.
From the outset, the goal of The HSUS and the other organizations collaborating with the Ocean Futures Society has been to nurture Keiko's interaction with wild whales. Our hope has been that Keiko would eventually join other orcas on migration and be truly free. But after several years in the waters off Iceland, he's not yet ready. It's clear that for a killer whale, the journey from captivity to freedom involves more than a swim through a sea gate into the open ocean. I'm brought back to that important lesson: It is far easier to capture a whale than to free him.
The last few years spent acclimating Keiko to the wild has not nearly been long enough to undo the harm inflicted by 23 years of isolation in captivity. At this point, we don't know whether Keiko can ever return permanently to the wild and be accepted by others of his kind. But if Keiko isn't ready to be free, we surely must continue to provide care. The HSUS has been honored and proud to be part of the project to release Keiko, and we remain so.
Whatever the future may bring for Keiko, all the efforts on his behalf have been worthwhile, not just for his sake, but because what we have learned may benefit other captive marine mammals. Keiko has also helped to change the way people view marine mammals in captivity. For the first time, a captive whale has been applauded not for the tricks he can perform, but for his potential freedom from tricks, tanks, and human intervention.
The fight to free Keiko also says something about us. In many ways, it exemplifies the best of what we as a species can do, and underlines our obligation to utilize the values of compassion, justice, kindness, and reverential respect for all life and to build a better world for those who share it. Of the lessons Keiko has taught us, clearly this is the most valuable of all.
Paul G. Irwin,
President, CEO, The Humane Society of the United States
