Thursday, May 14, 2009

Travel & Outdoors | The $20M lessons of "freeing" Keiko the whale | Seattle Times Newspaper

Travel & Outdoors | The $20M lessons of "freeing" Keiko the whale | Seattle Times Newspaper: "'In terms of giving Keiko a better life, it was 100 percent successful,' Rose said.

After two years of 'rehab' at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport to restore his health, Keiko spent four years living in net pens and venturing into the open ocean off the coast of Iceland. He then swam on his own to Norway, where he lived another year, free to come and go.

When he died of an apparent lung infection in December 2003, Keiko was estimated to be 27 years old — a longer life span than any other captive male orca, said Dave Phillips, director of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation."

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