The Good Whale: should real-life Free Willy really have been freed?

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muchopa@reddit

No, Serial the podcast is it's own thing. This podcast is The Good Whale. Both are made by Serial Productions which is maybe where the confusion is coming from haha.

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RedSun-FanEditor@reddit

The real question is "is it moral to cage animals in zoos and deny them the freedom they deserve?"

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Another good read on this was "Killing Keiko" by Mark Simmons. Basically the animal rights groups started trying to slow roll Keikos release because it was bringing in tons of funding that they didn't want to lose. Then good will and funding from the public dried up because it was taking so long, they botched his release because of money loss tried to say "we meant to do this".

Ultimately this project could have resulted in something unique and special but human greed got in the way of making the right call for Keikos benefit.

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mistymountaintimes@reddit

Where did you get/find the info on the sea pen? I watched the documentary and he's shown to interact with another pod that he never managed to integrate with. Then he later found a fishing village and he saw people again, stayed there, and died there of pneumonia in 2003.

Like did they trap other orcas in this pen with him or something?

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ZakA77ack@reddit

Further details are in the book i mentioned. Keiko lived in his sea pen for 4 years (1998-2002) They would occasionally take him for "walks" outside of the pen, accompanied by a boat to try and interact with wild Orcas (but it never worked). Finally in Summer of 2002 they "released" him and he was found dead in Norway in Dec 2003.

It's really sad because the first time they tried to get Keiko to meet other Orcas, earth island invited tons of media who came on helicopters and boats and freaked the wild Orcas out. Keikos first time meeting other Orcas, ruined for a stupid photo-op.

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Jamie-Moyer@reddit

From what I remember they didn’t just let him go free immediately, he was transferred to the sea pen in Iceland to rehabilitate him to being more self sufficient before eventual complete release.

I was a kid but I remember following the story closely. I grew up in Oregon and my family and I went and saw him at the Newport Aquarium.

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mistymountaintimes@reddit

Which is still not what the person i replied to is implying. They think he was kept there indefinitely. But he wasn't. It makes sense to acclimate an animal to the environment before letting them go off to do their animal things when they've been captive for so long.

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Jamie-Moyer@reddit

Yeah I see that now lol

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Lvl99Dogspotter@reddit

Both are true. He was in a sea pen for a long time while he acclimated, graduated to supervised swims outside of the pen with humans following him by boat, and eventually they deemed him fit to go out on his own. He did interact with other pods to some extent while he was swimming free, but seemed to prefer the company of humans. That was what he'd known since he was a baby.

Still, even if he never became a "wild" whale again, he was able to swim free in his home waters for the last years of his life. It should have been a template for further rehabilitation efforts, in my opinion, but plenty of groups with deep pockets have a significant financial interest in making it sound like a terrible failure.

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