Keiko Remembered in Pictures.

Dec. 15, 2003 — Keiko, the killer whale star of the "Free Willy" movies who spent most of his life in captivity, has died in a Norwegian fjord after failing to readapt to the wild despite a five-year, $20-million readaptation program, his handlers said on Saturday.

"Two days ago he began to be a bit lethargic and wouldn't accept food. We suspect he came down with a bit of pneumonia," one of the handlers who tried to help Keiko return to the wild, Dane Richards, told AFP.

Water Beasts Corwin's Carnival Marine Mammals Check out our Mammal Guide Stories from the Past News Archives

Keiko died on Friday afternoon at the age of 27, Richards said, in the Taknes fjord in western Norway where he settled after his release from Iceland last year.

Another of Keiko's handlers, Torbjoerg Valdis Kristiansdottir, said the death was unexpected. "This is like losing a good friend. We've been together every day for more than a year, and we didn't expect it to end like this now," she told Norwegian news agency NTB.

Taknes residents, who had been delighted to have the superstar orca frolicking in their fjord, on Saturday headed to the pier where Keiko's remains lay under a tarp to pay their respects.

"It will be empty here without him," Arve Henden said.

The orca was captured as a young calf off Iceland in 1979, and spent most of his life in captivity, mostly in water theme parks and starring in movies. He was taken to Canada and then on to Mexico, where the first of the three "Free Willy" movies about a boy trying to free a whale from captivity was filmed in 1993.

Reality later imitated art, when an international campaign was undertaken to free Keiko himself from captivity.

In 1998, the six-ton sea mammal was transferred from the United States to Iceland, aboard a U.S. Air Force cargo plane, to begin a $20-million program aimed at returning him to the wild.

Up to 20 people were involved in the initial readaptation efforts in Iceland, which began in a large sea pen built to meet his special needs.

Yet the efforts to free the whale did not sit well with everyone: an Icelandic fisherman offered to kill Keiko and make "60,000 meatballs for the starving children of Sudan."

When Keiko was released in Iceland almost four years later, in July 2002, he swam 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) and settled in a fjord in Norway, the only country in the world that defies an international ban on commercial whaling, though only minke whales are harpooned.

Yet despite attempts to teach Keiko to hunt for his own food, he remained until the end largely dependent on his team of "guardian angels" who followed his every move in the wild and often fed him the 40 to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of fish, mostly herring, that he required each day.

Philipps hailed Keiko and his handlers as pioneers.

"Keiko was a trailblazer, the first orca whale ever rescued from captivity. There's still a lot of work to be done to see that captive whales are given a chance to be free. Keiko showed what is possible if these animals are just given the chance," Philipps said.

It was not immediately known what would become of Keiko's remains, but Philipps has suggested putting his skeleton on display. Keiko was considered old for an orca in captivity. Wild orca live however an average of 35 years.