What do they mean by rehome? Isn’t the ocean their home?
Just free Willy!
It’s more complicated than that. A majority of captive orcas were captured when they were young during a critical period when they are supposed to learn how to hunt, adapt, and communicate with other orcas. These young orcas never learn to hunt or adapt due to being in captivity, fed dead fish, and kept in small enclosures. If released now, after years in captivity, they would most likely die. They fail to find pods, hunt for food, or survive in the wild, as they’ve grown dependent on humans for everything.
Willy the Orca, or Keiko the orca, to be more precise passed away due to the same reason.
Keiko died of a pneumonia-like virus,.
An article from the Guardian:
In death, as in life. Keiko, the killer whale made famous by starring in a Hollywood blockbuster, triggered a new wave of soul-searching yesterday about man's behaviour towards animals when the giant creature finally expired after a brief bout of pneumonia in a remote Norwegian fjord.
Marine experts declared Keiko, who was 27, dead after he succumbed to the virus following a period characterised as 'depression' by an inquest launched into his early death. Despite £12 million spent on preparing the mammal for life in the wild following his role in the film Free Willy , the most famous killer whale in history died eight years before the average life expectancy of his peers.
His six-ton carcass was found floating on the clear, coastal waters of Taknes Fjord, Norway, late on Friday. Keiko had, according to his handlers, died quickly.
For conservationists it was mixed news. Some said the loss offered further proof that captivity kills. Others argued that his death underlined the immorality of using animals for entertainment.
Keiko's sudden demise sparked mourning across the world. Even in Norway, the only nation in the world that still hunts whales commercially, Keiko had become a star. Margrete Seter, mayor of Norway's Halsa municipality, the orca's home since last year, said: 'It's terribly sad. We had been hoping to have him around for many more years.'
It was fitting that Keiko died alone. Despite becoming a household name in the wake of Free Willy's success, his life was characterised by loneliness. A life spent almost almost entirely in captivity had left him dependent on humans. Experts noticed a failure to bond with his own.
Those who followed the dramatic coastline of western Norway last autumn to catch a glimpse of him after he first appeared in a remote fjord were left saddened.
Local children had begun swimming with the 30-foot orca, and the whale could not bear to leave them. Rather than dash to the open sea he preferred to wallow listlessly near the coast and human contact. It was clear then, according to experts, that Keiko had developed a captive mentality. Many predicted even then that he would not last long.
It has been exactly a decade since Keiko starred in Free Willy. The story of a boy fighting to liberate a whale from an aquarium where he was exploited by unscrupulous showmen became a worldwide hit. Michael Jackson sang the theme You Are Not Alone, and sequels and even a TV series followed.
Initially his celebrity status appeared to have rescued him from a miserable life. After being captured by a trawler as he swam beside his mother aged just two off the Icelandic coast in 1978, he endured a brief career in aquariums in Iceland and Canada before going to an amusement park in Mexico City.
There he stayed, cut off from other member of his species, for 11 years in 12 feet of damagingly warm water. Keiko's health deteriorated, lesions covered his skin.
Yet despite more than a million people writing to demand his freedom following Free Willy, efforts to reintroduce him to the wild were prolonged and unsuccessful.
It took more than 60 failed attempts to reunite Keiko with free orcas before he followed a group across the Atlantic where, spotting a fishing vessel off the Norwegian coast, he followed it into the fjords that would prove his final resting place.
Today the Norwegian government will open discussions on whether Keiko should be buried on land rather than, as is traditional, cast to the open sea. For many who worked with Keiko it is pertinent that the mammal may not return to the wild waters he never felt comfortable in. Despite this, the San Francisco-based Free Willy-Keiko Foundation remains adamant that Keiko's plight challenged the perception that a whale could not be returned to the wild.
David Phillips, executive director of the foundation, said: 'We took the hardest candidate and took him from near death in Mexico to swimming with wild whales in Norway.
'Keiko proved a lot of naysayers wrong and that this can work and that is a very powerful thing.'
Sceptics point to the fact that until his death Keiko was, rather than frolicking freely in his fjord, being taken for 'walks' by caretakers in a small boat at least three times a week. Recent attempts to coax him to join other orcas migrating to Scotland, like many others attempts, failed.
At the end of Free Willy, the whale is persuaded to jump over a sea park wall to freedom. Most believed that Keiko would never experience such liberation while he remained alive.
