Kill Keiko, says whale expert

A NORWEGIAN whale expert’s suggestion that Keiko the killer whale – the star of the Free Willy movies – might have to be shot has outraged activists and the team that helped return the orca to freedom.

Keiko turned up in a fjord in Western Norway over the weekend, six weeks after he was released from his pen in Iceland, where experts had spent years seeking to help him make the transition from life in captivity to one in the wild.

The orca was an instant hit in the Skaalvik Fjord, where children swam with the whale, some even climbing on his back, and small boats crowded around for a glimpse of the finned Hollywood star. However, a leading whale expert, Nils Oien, shocked Keiko’s fans and other experts by saying the orca, used to life in captivity, had little chance of surviving a winter in the cold western Norway fjords and might have to be shot: “Then it would be better to put him to death.”