Kill Willie? Say it ain't so.
Kill Keiko?
September 3, 2002
By Kevin Reece
OLSO, NORWAY - There's outrage over what a Norwegian scientist wants to do to Keiko the killer whale.
Quite simply, he wants to kill Keiko -- euthanize him as a sick animal.
Newspapers in Norway were having a field day with the news, joking that Keiko definitely took a wrong turn by showing up in a country that hunts whales.
And at least one marine expert there wants him hunted down, to head off any accidents with humans, and to put Keiko out of his misery.
Keiko's keepers were already struggling with the first Norwegian response, trying to keep children from feeding and "riding" the famously tame whale.
And then the second response, from a Norwegian whaling expert, in a country still slaughtering whales for food.
"This is all madness," Nils Oien said of the millions spent trying to rehab Keiko. "They should have let him live and die in captivity. But now that they have decided not to keep him in captivity, they should put him down. Those who believe that they are helping Keiko by setting him free, are really doing the opposite."
Michael Harris of the Orca Conservancy was shocked, and so were others involved in tracking the orca.
"I don't know what to say," Harris said. "I don't know if anybody involved in this project knows how to respond to something like that."
The Humane Society of the United States called the Norwegian scientist "absurd and shortsighted." "All indications are that Keiko is doing extremely well," they said.
Doing well, they say, because he's come so far -- nearly 1,000 miles -- and that he appears healthy and has apparently been feeding on his own.
"Keiko's only sin right now is that he came into a harbor and people go tin the water with him," Harris said. "That's his only sin - he still trusts human beings that's hard to deprogram."
Keiko's rehab team believes that deprogramming, not the words of Norwegian scientist, is still Keiko's biggest challenge. They're trying to get Norwegians to back off, and give the whale space, so that maybe he'll prove his newest critic wrong.
"And he will continue to make progress," Harris said. "Get him back out in the north Atlantic and he's gonna be Free Willy. Not Kill Willy. Free Willy."
Meanwhile, the team of researchers who followed Keiko to Norway say they are still tracking him, encouraging Norwegians to stay away, and hoping he eventually heads back to sea.
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