Controversy still surrounds the fate of the killer whale Keiko, who was the star of the feel-good 1993 movie “Free Willy.”
That movie climaxed with a fairy-tale leap over a jetty, as Willy escaped into the wide ocean and swam off into the sunset.
When it was revealed that the real Willy actually lived in a cramped, substandard Mexican aquarium, children broke open their piggy banks to help fund a $20 million effort to free Keiko and return him to the wild.
But the whale’s release in 2002 was a disaster, according to a new book, “Killing Keiko: The True Story of Free Willy’s Return to the Wild,” by Mark Simmons.
Simmons, a former Sea World trainer, will introduce his book Thursday night at the Georgia Aquarium. He was the technical adviser and trainer of Keiko for “Free Willy,” and led the animal behavior team in Iceland that worked toward Keiko’s freedom. He walked the 5-ton orca through months of exercise and behavioral management in a bay pen in the North Atlantic, overseeing a regimen intended to prepare Keiko for life in the open ocean.
Simmons said the operation was hijacked by organizations seeking a “Hollywood ending.” Simmons said he and his partner, Robin Friday, separated from the project in protest. The Humane Society of the United States and the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation oversaw the operation, and for them “it was release at all cost,” Simmons said in a recent interview. “The decision was never made in the best interest of Keiko.”
As a result, a frightened, lonely whale was sentenced to hunger, dehydration and death, he writes.
Read more at on-myajc.com/1oJBgVk
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