Killer Whale Keiko Tries Diverse Diet Oregon Aquarium Star Gets Bigger, Healthier

Keiko is getting healthier and bigger, and is beginning to catch his own live fish instead of dining on dead ones.

The killer whale star of “Free Willy” came to the Oregon Coast Aquarium here from a Mexico City amusement park.

Keiko, who has been fed 175 pounds of dead fish daily, recently ate live herring and possibly a live black cod from fish swimming in his tank.

“It’s a big step, a big step for us,” said Nolan Harvey, curator of marine mammals for the Free Willy Keiko Foundation. “We’d like him to be catching fish pretty reliably while he’s here in this pen.”

Many hope Keiko can be placed in a bay pen and eventually freed, but others say he may have been in captivity too long to learn the ways of the wild.

The bay pen would probably be off Iceland, where Keiko was captured as an infant. There, Keiko would learn to communicate with other whales again after spending 15 years in captivity.

Harvey and his staff hope to begin looking for a suitable location for a pen in the next few months.

“He’s heading in the right direction,” Harvey said. “We’re working on Keiko’s time line, not ours.”

The transition from the bay pen to the open sea is expected to take from a few months to a year.

Since moving to Newport in January 1996, Keiko has gained 1,900 pounds and grown 6 inches to 21 feet in length. He weighed 9,620 pounds on June 5 and has since gained more weight.

Another good sign is that Keiko’s peduncle - a muscular area from mid-body to tail flukes used for propulsion - has grown 3 feet in diameter, to 142 inches.

The aquarium, which plans to expand its attractions, could use Keiko’s tank to rehabilitate other marine mammals, such as other whales and dolphins.

“Our goal has always been shared with the Free Willy Keiko Foundation,” said aquarium director Phyllis Bell. “You see diminishing results with Keiko as an attraction anyway.”