What accounts for the boom? Aquariums add a splash of color to cities searching for new vibrancy. They also draw tourists, revenue and renown. Annual aquarium attendance in America ballooned from 23 million in 1989 to 35 million in 1994. But a product needs a market before it will sell. What explains our fascination with marine life? Is it the allure of the unknown? We've grown pretty comfortable with life on dry land over the past 100,000 years or so, but only recently have scientists begun to explore the darkest reaches of the sea as well as help preserve and protect endangered, ailing sea mammals. At the Oregon Coast Aquarium, a state-of-the-art facility, humans are helping whales and looking toward the future as they seek ways to introduce them back into the wild.
OREGON COAST AQUARIUM, OREGON
Fans of the movie FREE WILLY will never forget the film's triumphant final scene, in which a noble three-ton killer whale, imprisoned at a scurvy amusement park, eludes his dastardly owners and slips over a jetty to freedom in the deep blue sea. A fine story, but slightly fishy. In real life, the star of the show, a 16-year-old orca named Keiko, remained in captivity at Reino Aventura, a park in Mexico City, Mexico. His pool was too shallow and the water too warm, conditions that contributed to a series of health problems. As the movie became more popular, Keiko became more sick. He had a serious weight problem (he needed to gain about a ton) and a skin virus that caused lesions on his famous black-and-white flanks. It seemed an all-too-realistic ending for a Hollywood fantasy.But then things began to happen: "Willy's" millions of admirers got word of the animal's plight. Executives at Warner Bros. enlisted Earth Island Institute, a San Francisco, California, environmental group, to find a solution that Keiko--and his fans--could live with. Meanwhile, his Mexican keepers, understanding that Keiko needed better facilities but without the resources to provide them, offered to put him up for adoption. Earth Island formed the Free Willy Foundation and started looking for a place and the money to build Keiko a new home. Warner Bros. kicked in $2 million, and thousands of schoolchildren began holding bake sales, sponsoring raffles and donating lunch money. The result: In January 1996, Keiko moved to the United States, into a state-of-the-art facility at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon.
The new home is tailor-made for Keiko. The pool is 150 feet long and 75 feet wide and contains two million gallons of cold, natural seawater. Its size allows Keiko to spyhop, or go vertical, lifting the top half of his body straight out of the water. The tank's nooks, crannies and valleys were designed to engage Keiko's curiosity; they should lead him to explore his surroundings and thereby develop better muscle tone. Water and air jets along the bottom form spouts and streams (similar to those that occur naturally), creating a sort of killer-whale Jacuzzi. Public viewing is from a below-the-surface vantage; there will be no stadium, no shows. To ensure Keiko always has ample food, there's a freezer big enough to store 120,000 pounds of fish--about what he would eat in a year.
After 12 months at the Oregon Coast Aquarium, Keiko has perked up. Most of his skin lesions are gone, he's gained a hefty 1,000 pounds (1,000 more yet to be added) and, happily, he's playful. Favorite pastimes are bumping and dragging his plastic ball and rolling over on his back so that divers can rub his belly.
The ultimate goal is to return Keiko to the wild, but it's a long shot--no captive orca has ever been released. Once Keiko is healthy, the staff will begin assessing his survival skills: Can he learn to hunt again? Can he be socialized into a wild pod of whales? Does the pod in Iceland from which he was captured 16 years ago even exist anymore? If life really does imitate art and Keiko is set free, his pool will be used to rehabilitate other marine mammals. In the meantime, he's got room to swim, plenty of fish to eat and the continued support of the Free Willy Foundation--all of which is pretty close to a Hollywood ending. NOTE: Keiko has been released and is no longer at the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
For more information about the Oregon Coast Aquarium, call (541) 867-3474.
For some fun animal facts, click here.
Please keep in mind that phone numbers, addresses, and prices are subject to change. Updated July 2005.
