Tale Of The Whale Monumental Campaign Continues To Put Star Of ‘Willy’ Back In The Wild

Hearts forgot to beat and theaters filled with cheers when the fictional orca of “Free Willy” breached a rock breakwater in a mighty leap and swam to freedom.

That was nothing to the freedom swim that Keiko, the film’s real whale, will begin this year.

If his journey goes as planned and hoped, Keiko will become the first orca ever to return to the ocean after a life of captivity. Instead of Willy’s myth and longing, Keiko will be propelled by the allowances of school kids, proceeds from premieres and special projects, gifts from millionaires, the kindness of his owners in Mexico City and the skill of the staff at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

All together, it will cost $10 million. Though everyone working to bring the orca north agrees the aquarium is a home where he can thrive, the question of whether Keiko will swim free remains a cliffhanger.

“It’s never been done before with a whale. It’s been done some with dolphins,” said Phyllis Bell, president of the Oregon Coast Aquarium. “But we have a lot of support. The response has been very positive from animal rights people. Scientists disagree.”

Though release is the goal, the foundation and the aquarium are being frank about the uncertainty and focusing on the first steps.

“Our primary goal is to get him here, get his weight up and get him feeling better,” Bell said of the whale who has not thrived in his Mexican home.

In December, Keiko will fly from Reino Aventura in Mexico City to the 2-million gallon tank now being built at the Oregon Coast Aquarium on Newport’s Yaquina Bay. It’s a tank unlike any where he has lived since he was captured off the coast of Iceland 14 years ago. He was a youngster - probably 2 years old - when his captors shipped him to Marineland in Niagara Falls, Canada.

In 1985, the owners of Reino Aventura, a marine park in land-locked Mexico City, bought him for $350,000 and shipped him south to a small pool filled with warm, artificial sea water.

He draws crowds with his performances, and he drew a movie crew looking for an orca to star in the story of a captive whale longing to rejoin his family. Almost as soon as “Free Willy” opened, the children who made it a hit began asking about its star.

They learned that life in the Mexico City tank hasn’t been good to him. As 16-year-old orcas go, he’s a ton underweight at 7,000 pounds and 21 feet. The warm water has allowed a wartlike papilloma virus to attack his skin. Frustrated by the small tank, he’s worn his teeth down by chewing on the concrete. His dorsal fin has fallen because he can’t swim straight enough or dive deep enough to allow the water to support the collagen that fills it.

Children learned that, unlike the recalcitrant Willy, Keiko routinely performs shows that are the main attraction at Reino Aventura.

They discovered that, unlike the scurrilous owner in the movie, Keiko’s owners love him enough to kiss their $350,000 investment goodbye and eliminate their park’s strongest financial draw to give Keiko a better home.

“He was donated by the people at Reino Aventura park,” Bell said. “Keiko is the main attraction down there, but they’d been working with different groups to try to find him a better home. They love him down there.”

The children also discovered that big-time movie moguls will act on principle. Richard Donner, who produced “Free Willy,” led the push to free Keiko. He enlisted Earth Island Institute to establish the Free Willy Keiko Foundation last November.

The foundation is in charge of raising the $10 million it will cost to build the new tank, pay for transportation and keep Keiko fed and healthy for two years. Donations have hit $5.5 million and should climb now that “Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home” is on screens nationwide, said David Phillips, executive director of Earth Island Institute and head of Free Willy Keiko Foundation.

No sooner had Warner Bros. and New Regency Productions donated $2 million than the Craig and Wendy McCaw Foundation did the same. Singer Jimmy Buffett sent money. So did Mark Hemstreet, president of Shiloh Inns.

And so did the kids.

Thousands of them. Children from Salem, Ore., schools sent in $4,000 they earned by making jewelry, holding raffles and organizing penny drives. Many are children who had been to the Oregon Coast Aquarium even before they knew Keiko would come there.

Bell knows it’s a great place for kids, but she had her doubts about orcas. The foundation called her, and she hesitated.

“I had to think about it,” she said. “It’s a big project, a very big project.”

It cost $24 million to open the entire aquarium in 1992. The price tag for Keiko’s pool is $7.5 million. Holding 2 million gallons, 150 long, 75 feet wide and 25 feet deep, it will be one of the biggest tanks anywhere. Set half in and half above the ground, it will have windows below water level but no above-ground viewing areas. Keiko won’t need those. He won’t be performing any more.

Instead, he’ll be swimming between fabricated rock work or scratching on an underwater rubbing beach. That $7.5 million also will pay for an attached medical pool, loading dock and a freezer that can hold 120,000 pounds of frozen fish. That’s enough to feed him for one year - and as much as all the other creatures at the aquarium combined eat in a year.

The remainder of the $10 million will pay for transportation, all that fish, veterinary care and his keepers for two years. If, after that time, he can’t be freed, the aquarium will take over financial responsibility for him, Bell said.

Visitors can take a look at progress on the project - and at the animatronic whale model used in both “Free Willy” movies - from a viewing area.

Once Keiko arrives in December, they will be able to look through huge Plexiglas windows to keep track of how he’s doing. At first, they’ll see two of his trainers from Reino Aventura working with his Oregon keepers while they get acquainted. Then they’ll see him learning the skills he’ll need if he’s to survive in the wild. The hand-fed orca will have to learn to hunt and kill his own food.

In the wild, orcas eat seals, sea lions and other cetaceans as well as fish.

While he is learning survival skills, the staff will be trying to find his family - the pod off Iceland from which he was captured 14 years ago. In the wild, whales in a pod remain together all their lives. The humans who care for Keiko will have to learn whether, after all this time, the pod’s memory can call him home - whether he still has a place in the oceans of his youth.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Helping Keiko TACOMA The Free Willy Keiko Foundation and the aquarium have put together affordable donor opportunities for people who want to help Keiko but somehow failed to get rich in the movies or the cellular phone business. The $25 Free Willy Adoption Kit enrolls kids in the Free Willy/Keiko Foundation Kid’s Club, with a membership pledge card that reads: “I have adopted Keiko and share in his dream of freedom. I pledge to remain honorable and caring about all living creatures and to always strive to help them live peacefully in the wild. I will remain considerate of my actions and the impact that they have upon the natural world.” The kit contains a movie poster, Keiko’s biography, three stickers, a bumper sticker and a form to send in for an adoption certificate. Kits purchased at the aquarium come with two bonuses: the foundation’s “Field Guide to the Orca” and a replica of the amulet Randolph gave to Jesse in the original movie. Free Willy-Keiko Donor Tiles at the aquarium are on sale for $250 to $5,000. Foundation hats, T-shirts, amulets and plush toys sell for $4.20 to $15.50. Fourth graders at McKinley School in Salem, Ore., have made ceramic pins that sell for $5.95 at the aquarium and benefit the foundation. For information, write to the Free Willy Keiko Foundation c/o The Oregon Coast Aquarium, 2820 S.E. Ferry Slip Road, Newport, OR 97365. -McClatchy News Service