Killer whales Keiko who was world famous with "Free Willy"

Killer whales Keiko, who was world famous with "Free Willy"

Films, was never really free. After the films and many years of captivity, there were major, costly trials under immense media attention to get Keiko as Willy was right, put out in the wild.

But according to a Danish researcher was trying doomed. After many years in captivity without species Keiko was too closely related to humans. It concludes that the Danish biologist Malene Simon in a scientific article published in Marine Mammal Science.

Malene Simon, who resides in Greenland and doctoral student at the Institute of Biology, University of Aarhus, Keiko came through several years of trying to liberate him. Keiko died about 26 years old in a Norwegian fjord in 2003 after it was abandoned to allow him free among wild killer whales.

Malene Simon's research shows that although people are attracted by the idea of a wild animal liberation from years of captivity, it is not necessarily happiness of the animal.

- We believe that the best for Keiko, the open fences in Norway, where he had plenty of room and were fed and trained by the people he was linked to, says Malene Simon. The report contradicts statements by the organization Free Willy-Keiko Foundation joined in 2003 and described Keikos frisættelse a success. The project to put free Keiko went into operation after a great popular pressure in the wake of the "Free Willy" films in the 1990s. Free Willy-Keiko Foundation received large sums from around the world for the project.