Oslo, Oct 16: Keiko, the killer whale, star of the Free Willy movies, got a new winter home in an ice-free Norwegian fjord on Tuesday after a battle between local communities vying for a new tourist attraction.
The orca will stay in western Norway, where he has made a splash with the locals since he showed up last month at a remote fishing community of 1,750 people. He was released from captivity in Iceland in July.

Norway's Fishery Directorate said Keiko would be moved to Taknes bay in the Korsnes fjord in West Norway, about 10 km northeast from the Skaalvik fjord where he has spent the last six weeks.

Both fjords are in Halsa municipality, which has lobbied hard to keep Keiko from other municipalities seeking a new attraction. Thousands of people have come to watch Keiko.
"We are incredibly happy. We have won the Keiko battle," Lars Olav Lilleboe, Halsa's Keiko coordinator, told Reuters.


Keiko's surprise visit to Norway has sparked big controversy in the only nation in the world that hunts whales commercially and where whales are viewed more as meat than entertainment.

In Taknes, Keiko will not be disturbed by local fish farms or boat traffic and the area is ice-free through the winter. Many whales die every year from being trapped under the ice in deep Norwegian fjords.
The first thing he did when he arrived in Norway in early September was to put on a display for local children, showing he was the same playful orca in real life as on screen.


Pictures of children riding on Keiko's back went worldwide, sparking worries among some whale experts that he might never be able to live in the wild after more than 20 years in captivity. Keiko was captured near Iceland as a calf aged about two and performed in marine amusement parks in Canada and Mexico for almost 20 years.


He was returned to Iceland in 1998 after people saw him as the captive whale in the 1993 movie Free Willy. Male orcas can live about 50 years.

Bureau Report