Free Corky? : Calls to Release Sea World Orca Grow Louder With Success of ‘Free Willy’ Film

Corky, a female orca weighing almost four tons, has become the focal point of what many describe as nothing less than a full-fledged custody dispute.

It is a battle involving millions of dollars and a parade of expert opinions, not to mention gut-wrenching emotions intensified by international media coverage and the hit movie “Free Willy.”

Unlike that of Keiko, the killer whale who starred in “Free Willy” and suffers a contagious skin condition and an uncertain future in a small marine park in Mexico City, Corky’s case is not new. But the plight of Keiko and the popularity of the movie have renewed the 2 1/2-year-old debate surrounding Sea World’s Corky.

On one side is a band of animal rights activists and oceanographers who say Corky should be returned to her native habitat off Vancouver Island in British Columbia, where, they say, she should live the rest of her days with her mother and siblings.

But officials at Sea World, where Corky has been a fixture in the killer whale show for six years after spending 18 years at the now-defunct Marineland in Palos Verdes, say returning her to the wild after decades in captivity would mean almost certain death.

They want her to remain in her adoptive home, a 5-million-gallon, 37-foot-deep saltwater tank, where, they say, she has come to depend on human beings for her entire food supply and much of her love and affection.

As with any custody dispute, both sides say the other is wrong. Both trot out statistics and opinions to bolster their claims, and when those do not work, they resort to emotion. Charges and counter-charges have continued unabated since the release of “Free Willy.”

So far, the free-Corky movement has consisted of personal pleas and letters, as well as a boycott of Anheuser-Busch Inc., the St. Louis-based brewing company that owns six Sea World parks around the country.

There have been pickets and protests, full-page newspaper ads, a free-Corky banner placed on Busch Tower in St. Louis and emotional entreaties from children, who have written letters like this one from 11-year-old Josephine Kopka:

“My uncle drinks Budweiser, but I’m going to tell him all about Corky, and hopefully, he’ll stop buying that product. . . . I hope and pray Corky will be freed!”

Those voicing the free-Corky position say keeping her in captivity is cruel and inhumane and will severely shorten her life. Killer whales in the wild sometimes live into their 90s, they say. Those in marine parks often die in their teens.

Nonsense, says Jim McBain, the corporate director of veterinary medicine at Sea World of California, who maintains that documented proof of the life spans of killer whales has yet to be obtained and that half of all orcas in the wild die in their first year.

In Defense of Animals, a San Rafael-based group pushing for Corky’s release, accuses Sea World and other marine parks of exploiting killer whales for their ability to bring in millions of dollars as gate attractions.

Suzanne Roy, program director of In Defense of Animals, said that oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and his son, Jean-Michel Cousteau, have, as part of the effort to free Corky, begun to vilify such parks in general, contending that the housing of live sea mammals is not necessary to oceanic education.

The elder Cousteau recently opened a marine park near Paris that Roy said uses no live animals but relies instead on state-of-the-art audio and visual equipment and lifelike robotic models, not unlike those in dinosaur parks.

But McBain says millions of people--particularly children--would never be exposed to killer whales were it not for aquatic theme parks.

Shamu Stadium, the 7,000-seat amphitheater where Corky and four other orcas perform in six shows a day during the summer, was packed on a recent breezy afternoon. Virtually all the killer whale shows have been standing-room-only since the release of “Free Willy.”

The crowd roared as Corky, the largest of the five, shot up out of the water to what McBain said was a height of 25 feet. She then circled the pool, splashing water on the first dozen rows of squealing children.

“As long as you understand the movie is fiction, it’s OK,” McBain said. “In many ways, though, the movie has helped us.”

But he said that help was confined to increased attendance and renewed interest in whales. The movie has pushed into overdrive the debate over Corky’s future, which, if McBain has anything to say about it, will always be at Sea World.

The idea of returning Corky to the wild was first proposed 2 1/2 years ago by Paul Spong, the director of ORCALAB, a land-based whale research station in British Columbia. Spong claims to know the pod, or whale group, from which Corky was taken in 1969.

Spong says the surviving members of Corky’s family--a mother and at least two siblings--have been identified through close-up photography and the unique configurations of the animals’ dorsal fins.

Corky’s dorsal fin, for instance, is taller and straighter than those of the other orcas at San Diego’s Sea World, where the youngest killer whale just turned 2. Corky, the oldest orca in any Sea World park, was thought to have been no more than 8 when captured.

Spong, In Defense of Animals and a fleet of other free-the-whales contingents want Corky released largely for the privilege of dying among her blood-related brethren.

Roy, of In Defense of Animals, says that by removing Corky from the wild, humankind has eliminated her ability to swim 40 to 100 miles a day at speeds up to 30 miles an hour and to navigate and hunt by echo location, hurling whale sounds over hundreds of miles.

“They’ve taken away her family, taken away her freedom, taken away her world of sound and put her in a concrete tank,” Roy said. “It places enormous stress on such animals and shortens their lives considerably. And then they’re forced to perform stupid pet tricks all day long.”

During a recent segment of ABC’s “Prime Time Live,” Corky was played a tape recording of killer whale voices that Spong says belong to her mother and siblings. In an emotional, made-for-TV moment, Corky shuddered as if she knew them--and missed them.

“I saw her shudder this morning,” McBain said. “We call it head-bobbing. They do that frequently. We see all the whales do it, and do it often, as part of their body language communication with one another.”

McBain is convinced that releasing Corky into the wild would guarantee only her doom. There is no precedent for releasing a captive killer whale into the wild, he said, nor is there the slightest assurance that she could hunt and remain free of parasites and other disease.

“I think,” he said with a sigh, “that it would be a disaster . . . and one we will do everything in our power to prevent.”