http://www.thestatesman.net/page.new...ess=1&id=30787
Quote:
Keiko the Free Willy whale dead
Associated Press
OSLO, Dec. 13. — Keiko, the killer whale star of the Free Willy movies, has died, his caretakers said early today.
The whale died after the sudden onset of pneumonia in the Taknes fjord in Norway around 4 p.m. (GMT) yesterday. His handler, Ms Dane Richards, said the 27-year-old whale fell ill suddenly. “He exhibited some signs of lethargy and lack of appetite.”
She said veterinarians had monitored Keiko’s progress, but the whale died quickly. “We checked his respiration rate and it was a little irregular... he wasn’t doing too well,” she said. “Early in the evening, he passed away.”
In the wild, orcas can live an average of 35 years.
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 about $500,000 a month. That amount paid for a year of care, according to the Free Willy Foundation in San Francisco, California.
Keiko was released from Iceland in July 2002. He swam straight for Norway on a 1,400 km trek that seemed to be a search for human companionship.
Keiko first turned up near the village of Halsa in late August or early September of 2002.
The whale allowed fans to pet and play with him, even crawl on his back, becoming such an attraction that animal protection authorities imposed a ban on approaching him.
Keiko’s keepers said the whale seemed to adapt to living in the wild despite so many years in captivity, learning to slap his tail and do jumps called side breaches that are typically done to stun fish in the wild.
To keep Keiko in shape, his caretakers took him on “walks”, leading him around the fjords from a small boat at least three times a week.
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Okay, now I normally consider myself quite the left-wing idealist nut who loves animals and cries himself to sleep at night thinking of baby cows being slaughtered for some fat cat capitalist to floss his teeth with... But I remember first hearing on the news about Keiko's rehabilitation and thinking "that's a lot of money for one domesticated whale!"
Does anybody hear think the expenditures were worth it, especially now considering he died prematurely? Obviously we couldn't know that he was going to catch pnumonia, but still... It seemed like a long-shot to be able to have him be fully rehabilitated. And even if was, and lived as a normal whale in the ocean until old age... I still am having trouble justifying the cost for the operation. I mean, I know there's probably a lot of good publicity and "lessons well-learned" by freeing Keiko and such, but sheeeiiiiit. Seems like we could have spent that money and preserved some intact wild habitat or something and saved some animals that can go on happily were it not for us making popsickle sticks out of their homes
