Keiko

Keiko (earlier Siggi and Kago; – 12 December 2003) was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979. He portrayed Willy in the 1993 film Free Willy. In 1996, Warner Bros. and the International Marine Mammal Project collaborated to return Keiko to the wild. After years of preparing Keiko for reintegration, Keiko was flown to Iceland in 1998 and in 2002, became the first captive orca to be fully released back into the ocean. On 12 December 2003, he died of pneumonia in a bay in Norway at the age of 27. Early life Keiko was captured near Reyðarfjörður, Iceland in 1979 at the approximate age of two and sold to the Icelandic Aquarium in Hafnarfjörður. At the time, he was named Siggi, with the name Kago given at a later date. In 1982, he was sold to Marineland in Ontario, Canada. At this new facility, he first started performing for the public and developed skin lesions indicative of poor health and was also bullied by older orcas. Keiko was then sold to Reino Aventura, an amusement park in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1985. At Reino Aventura, he was given the name "Keiko", a feminine Japanese name that means "lucky one". At the time, he was only long and was housed in a tank intended for bottlenose dolphins.