Let's start from the beginning: In 1979, Keiko was taken from his pod as a 2-year-old orca. Though he eventually returned to Iceland in 1998 for a years-long effort to break bonds with humans and ...

According to a release from The Good Whale, after Free Willy became an unexpected hit, fans learned the orca who played Willy in the movie — a killed whale named Keiko — was ill and living in ...

OSLO, Norway -- For kids, Keiko the killer whale was the charming hero of "Free Willy." For biologists, he was the focus of fierce debate on whether captive animals can be returned to the wild ...

Keiko, the killer whale, spent time at the Oregon Coast Aquarium after living in a small tank in Mexico. He was the star of the popular film "Free Willy." ...

NEWPORT, Ore. -- At Ocean Coast Aquarium, the 1.6 million-gallon pool that held Keiko the whale for nearly three years has been converted into a tank for sharks. But reminders of the superstar ...

In September of 1998, Keiko left Oregon and was flown to Iceland. After four years of rehabilitation there, in 2002 he became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean.

Keiko was in his early 20s — still young for an orca — when he was brought to Iceland in 1998. To teach him to hunt, trainers would launch fish around his pen with a slingshot.

In the summer of 1993, the movie “Free Willy” — about a captive killer whale that’s heroically set free — was an unexpected hit. But when word got out that the real whale who played ...

Moved to Iceland and painstakingly trained to be set free, Keiko never took up with his own kind, frustrating many who supported the project. Article continues below this ad ...