Keiko to winter in secluded bay
For the winter, Keiko's handlers want to lead him to a more isolated bay called Taknes, where fishing grounds are rich and wild orcas are thought to be plentiful.
"We're looking forward to it," said Colin Baird, Keiko's trainer. "But there have been a lot of logistics involved."
The team will use boats to guide Keiko through Norway's waterways to his winter home. A date for the move has not been announced.
The 6-ton star of the "Free Willy" films was released in his native waters off the coast of Iceland in July after more than two decades in captivity. His awkward forays in the wild and lack of social skills among other orcas have caused his handlers to wonder if the people-loving cetacean will ever bond with his own kind.
After a $20 million program trained him for life in the ocean, Keiko traveled 870 miles to western Norway, frolicking with boats and bathers to the delight of fans and the distress of scientists.
Authorities in this Scandinavian nation of 4.5 million have promised to protect Keiko, whose name means "lucky one" in Japanese. He cannot be captured, penned or commercially exploited. He's protected under law because Norway permits commercial whalers to hunt only Minke whales.
But Keiko, now nearly 25 years old, finds humans hard to resist. Hundreds of fans swam with him, petted him and climbed on his back until Norwegian authorities imposed a ban on approaching him. Even after that, Keiko came close to shore in response to an 8-year-old girl's harmonica serenade, mimicking a scene from one of his movies.
The people of Halsa — a village about 250 miles northwest of the capital, Oslo — were delighted by Keiko's presence and lobbied to keep him in their region with the slogan, "Do like Keiko. Pick Halsa."
Baird and other supporters say Keiko, who was rescued from a Mexico City amusement park in 1996, could eventually join a pod of wild orcas.
"It is entirely up to him; we just want to give him the chance to meet them," said Baird. "He is free. He's not penned in or anything."
Critics say the effort is a waste of time and money.
"I don't think for a second that Keiko would survive in the wild," said Erik Berntsen, a veterinarian at the Norwegian Institute of Nature Studies. "What they are doing borders on animal abuse."
But Keiko's trainers say there's still hope he could live happily among other orcas in the wild.
"Who knows what might happen next?" asked Baird. "One day he might just be gone."