Willy Went Free, but Will Keiko?

Lolling on his side, he’s treated to a back scratch. The day’s session gets off to a slow start, but he finally jumps through all the hoops. “Good boy!” his trainer says, running both hands over his pupil.

Keiko, the 8,000-pound orca, veteran marine park performer and star of “Free Willy” lifts his fin to give his trainer a better angle. His eyes fall shut.

It has been five months since this lap dog of a leviathan was delivered to the Oregon Coast Aquarium amid much fanfare. His plight in a cramped Mexico City pool became an international cause celebre after his 1993 film debut, and his move to this 2-million-gallon bay-front tank became the first step in an experiment aimed at returning him to the sea.

Keiko was captured in 1979 at about age 2 off the coast of Iceland and spent the next 17 years in marine parks in Iceland, Canada and Mexico City. His film role in the story of a neglected killer whale released back to the sea fueled the movement to send him down the same path.

Keiko’s improvement has been remarkable in the early days of this unprecedented rehabilitation effort, funded by the San Francisco-based Earth Island Institute’s nonprofit Free Willy-Keiko Foundation. But opinions vary widely whether Keiko will--or should--ever again see the open ocean.

“Look at him. He’s a golden retriever. He’s no killer whale,” says Mark Trimm, one of the whale’s six trainers.

But foundation director David Phillips, a marine biologist, disagrees. “This is undocumented ground, but I say he’s got a good shot,” says Phillips, whose organization controls Keiko’s fate.

John Hall, a marine scientist who is experienced at rehabilitating dolphins for reintroduction to the wild, is even more confident.

“This guy is cool. He’s doing fabulously,” says Hall. He sees Keiko as an excellent candidate for release within 18 months.

But to get there, Keiko must be trained to be wild. He must hunt. He must think for himself. He must learn to distrust his only natural enemy--humans.

He also must improve his stamina and defeat the papilloma virus--a wart-like growth that mars the orca’s skin like rust spots on a sleek black sports car.

To some, the dangers of liberation far outweigh the benefits.

“You’re gambling with an animal’s life,” says Brad Andrews, director of zoological operations for Sea World, which runs four marine parks in the United States that all feature killer whale acts.

The goal of animal rights activists and many scientists is that Keiko will lead the way for other captive orcas. One whale mentioned as a candidate to follow Keiko to Oregon is Corky, a star at Sea World in San Diego. Another is Lolita at the Miami Seaquarium.

Andrews says Sea World will not let Corky go. “I’ve worked too long with animals to put one in jeopardy,” he says.

Regarding the possibility of Lolita becoming the next guest of the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, Hall says Miami Seaquarium officials made it clear she’s not available. “They didn’t say no,” Hall recalls. “They said, ‘Hell no.’ ”

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Keiko’s workout this afternoon is to begin with aerobics. He heads to the side of the pool and sticks his head out as the trainers approach. Trimm signals him to swim, but Keiko drifts to the far end and is motionless.

“He’s clearly blowing off this session,” Trimm says with a laugh.

So they wait. Like the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, a killer whale does whatever it wants to.

After a few minutes, Keiko glides slowly toward trainer Noland Harvey. Again he’s given the signal to swim and he circles the pool, stopping at underwater targets. With each stop, Trimm blows a dog whistle and Keiko gets some fish. Later, the orca receives another signal and he zooms twice around the pool, then takes a third leisurely lap . . . upside down. Why? “Because he can,” Trimm says.

Keiko’s training for the wild includes aerobic work to build muscles that have atrophied during a lifetime in small pools and “innovative” training to expand his mind.

After some speed work and jumping, the innovative session begins. After 17 years of being told nearly his every move, Keiko must learn to think for himself.

He receives the signal that means “surprise us.” He bursts into the air, landing with the kind of splash once designed to soak front-row spectators. For this impressive move, he gets some fish. When he gets the signal again, he repeats the stunt--to no avail. Keiko pauses, then tries swimming a lap. The simple, but different, maneuver is rewarded.

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What follows is Keiko’s highlight for the day. He churns about underwater, then finishes with a spinning jump--a combination of moves the trainers have never seen. The session has gone well.

When Keiko arrived from Mexico, he knew only 15 behaviors, when a whale of his age and intelligence should have known 200 to 300. “He’s a shadow of what he could have been,” Harvey says. “When he got here, he was this green blank slate of a mind. The excitement came when he started coming up with things on his own. He’s starting to use his brain.”

“It’s like watching him wake up,” says Dianne Hammond, publicist for the aquarium. Hammond recalls that, at first, Keiko didn’t know how to play. Trainers would throw him his ball and he would just look at it. Now, he not only plays ball with his trainers, “He’s playing when there is no reinforcement,” Hammond says.

Keiko’s $7.3-million tank is four times the size of his old one and is filled with 40-degree seawater from the Yaquina Bay. Two underwater viewing windows allow Keiko and visitors to interact. “It’s the best captive environment there is,” Phillips says.

Keiko drops below the surface and puts his face to the glass, studying the people. This is why they braved the stormy weather to come to the aquarium, where the line stretches to the parking lot.

Since its opening in 1992, the aquarium has been a boon to the city. Summer traditionally brings in the tourists, but nobody can remember anything that compares with the nonstop business Newport has seen since January, the beginning of the Keiko era.

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Hammond can already hear the criticism. No matter the outcome of the Keiko experiment, she is facing a public relations nightmare.

If it is decided that Keiko cannot be released, Hammond anticipates environmental groups will charge that his move to Oregon was a money-making scheme. If he is freed, it will be an emotional and economic blow to Newport. And then there is the unthinkable--that the experiment succeeds in returning Keiko to the sea, only to end in the realization that an orca raised in captivity cannot survive.

This, Sea World’s Andrews says, is the glaring flaw in the project. “If it doesn’t work, Keiko’s dead.”

To regain his freedom, Keiko will have to become a predator. He will have to find food by echolocation--emitting clicks and buzzes and using echoes to locate prey. No one knows how to teach this to an orca. The hope is that the behavior is instinctive.

“It’s arrogant to say 17 years with people could overcome millions of years of genetic fine-tuning,” Hall says. “The know-how to echolocate and find fish doesn’t go away.”

If he is deemed fit, Keiko’s next stop will be a netted sea pen in the north Atlantic, preferably off the coast of Iceland. In time, the net would be removed and the choice to leave would be his. “We would open the pen and say, ‘You can go out, but if you want to come back and have a Big Mac on us, we’re here,’ ” Hall says. Keiko would wear a monitor on his dorsal fin and could be tracked by satellite.

Before Keiko is shipped to Iceland, he must clear what may be his greatest hurdle. Icelandic officials, protective of their vital fishing interests, are not welcoming their native son home. They fear his virus will spread to the fish population.

And before the orca swims into the sunset, a la “Free Willy,” those observing his progress must be convinced that his release is the right thing to do.

“Every day, we think of Keiko first,” Harvey says. “It’s all for Keiko. That’s why we’re here at 6 in the morning and leave at 9 at night. It’s for Keiko. So when it comes time to consider his release, it will be decided based on what’s best for Keiko, and not what makes everyone’s heart feel better.”