page_title: List of captive killer whales
section_title: Keiko
hierarchical_section_title: List of captive killer whales / Listing of individuals / Deceased / Keiko
context_page_description: They soon became popular attractions at public aquariums and aquatic theme parks due to their intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size. As of February 2019, captive orcas reside at facilities in North and South America, Europe and Asia.
  The first North Eastern Pacific orca, Wanda, was captured in November 1961 by a collecting crew from Marineland of the Pacific, and over the next 15 years, around 60 or 70 orcas were taken from Pacific waters for this purpose.
  When the US Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 effectively stopped the capture of Pacific orcas, captures were made in Icelandic waters. Since 2010, captures have been made in Russian waters. However, facilities in the United States such as SeaWorld have not collected wild orcas in over 35 years.
  27 of the 34 orcas on display in the US, Canada, Argentina, Spain, and France were born in captivity. 6 of the 7 displayed in Japan are captive-born. An additional 13 orcas reported in China and Russia were captured in Russian waters.
  Kalina, born in September 1985, was the first captive-born orca calf to survive more than a few days.
context_section_description: Keiko (1977 – December 12, 2003) was an orca who starred in the first of three Free Willy movies. Keiko died on December 12, 2003, after beaching himself during the night; pneumonia was later determined as the probable cause of death. Keiko was captured near Iceland in 1979 and sold to the Icelandic aquarium in Hafnarfjörður. Three years later, he was sold to Marineland of Canada, where he first started performing for the public and developed skin lesions indicative of poor health. He was then sold to Reino Aventura (now named Six Flags Mexico), an amusement park in Mexico City, in 1985. He was the star of the movie Free Willy in 1993.
  The publicity from his role in Free Willy led to an effort by Warner Brothers Studio to find him a better home. Donations from the studio and Craig McCaw led to the establishment of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation in February 1995. With donations from the foundation and millions of school children, the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon spent over US$7 million to construct facilities to return him to health with the hope of returning him to the wild. He was airlifted by UPS to his new home on January 7, 1996, with a length of 24 feet (7.3 m) and weighing 3,500 kilograms (7,700 lb). During his years in Oregon, he gained over a ton in weight.
  On September 9, 1998, he was flown to Klettsvik Bay in Vestmannaeyjar in Iceland, and gradually reintroduced to the wild, returning to the open sea in July 2002. Keiko died on December 12, 2003, at the age of 27. Following requests from fans of the orca and Free Willy, the Oregon Coast Aquarium held a memorial service for him on February 20, 2004. 700 people attended the service, at which the aquarium's veterinary chaplain said, "Keiko was not one of our kind, but nonetheless was still one of us." There is a memorial site for Keiko set up by the locals in Halsa, Norway, where the orca spent the last year of his life.
caption: Keiko is weighed as he is loaded into his specially made transport tank at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, on September 9, 1998.
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