Killing Keiko Read online

  This was true from the start, including Keiko’s first journey from Mexico to Newport, Oregon, throughout his care there and onto his transport to Iceland. Keiko was constantly under the supervision of individuals from the zoological community. This was very odd and always stood out to me like a huge elephant in the room; one that no one dared discuss openly.

  At the time of our initial contact with the project, the actual personnel attending to Keiko’s day-to-day care in Iceland were individuals with whom Robin had worked in the past—namely Jeff Foster and Peter Noah, the two on-site project managers. Jeff and Peter both shared an animal background not unlike that of Robin’s and mine. They were not raised in the culture of anti-captivity supporters and were therefore down-to-earth in their approach to the project and us.

  Their way of thinking about Keiko’s release was based on their experience, not a philosophy. Jeff and Peter’s leadership stemmed the radical tide, and to a certain extent, made the project palatable. Ultimately, the people and the perspective emanating from the frontlines with Keiko made our decision for us.

  The Proposal

  Upon Robin’s return to Orlando following his initial visit, Dave and I commenced lengthy and relentless interrogation. Dave was our third in the “three amigos” makeup of our new company. He shared a similar background with me, having worked with killer whales and studied behavioral sciences. It was our job to take what Robin reported—his evaluations and opinions—and put all of this into a reintroduction outline and formal proposal, a plan deeply rooted in behavioral rehabilitation or the systematic reprogramming of Keiko.

  Once completed, this proposal was presented to Ocean Futures Society (OFS), a newly formed nonprofit born of a joint alliance between the Jean-Michel Cousteau Institute and the FWKF. OFS was the front line in the management of Keiko’s day-to-day needs; however, they answered to the FWKF board on all things “Keiko.” Our proposal represented a vast divergence from their previous approach and placed the principal focus of Keiko’s release on behavioral modification. It also positioned our company as subcontractor to OFS for implementing the plan.

  Apparently OFS found some favor in our outlined plan of reintroduction, but exactly what I do not know. To our dismay, the project’s head veterinarian, Dr. Lanny Cornell and the board of directors did not consider that behavior had anything to do with Keiko’s preparation for release. This shortcoming left a cataclysmic gap in their concept of Keiko’s introduction to the wild. Amidst all the management inadequacies apparent thus far, including lack of experience with killer whales and the absence of a structured release plan, this was the Grand Canyon of them all. They blatantly failed to recognize or even consider the impact of Keiko’s life over the past two decades and his learning history. Quite simply, they believed that Keiko would “figure it out.” Much like the flatbed trailer scene in Free Willy, in which Willy was backed into the sea from a boat ramp, the leadership of the FWKF believed Keiko’s release was primarily logistics, just getting him to Icelandic waters.

  Dr. Cornell had formerly been SeaWorld’s head veterinarian in the 1970s and ‘80s; the only individual early in the project with any killer whale zoological experience worth noting. Lanny, however, was a veterinarian. While trained and studied in marine mammal medicine, he knew very little about shaping behavior. It was a classic case of Maslow’s hammer: “If all you have is a hammer, then everything is a nail.” Our experiences with Lanny in the past attested to his approach: behavior was treated with drugs, not conditioning, and behavioral science was fool’s play. In fact, the project’s staff at that time referred to much of Lanny’s direction as “voodoo science.”

  To say Lanny is well known for his loathing of animal trainers would be an understatement. In his previous career at the helm of SeaWorld veterinary care, he was also known as a bit of a bully. Sadly, there had been no shortage of stories recounting his notorious intimidation tactics.

  This sordid history left no question in our minds that Dr. Cornell had played an enormous part in dismissing behavior as having any relevance in Keiko’s rehabilitation. Early on, we often pondered the apparent discrepancy, Why then had Lanny been the very person to invite Robin’s involvement? More than a decade had passed since the two had worked together. It’s most likely that Lanny was oblivious of Robin’s professional evolution, which had brought about a very different attitude on the subject of behavioral science. In fact, Robin had come to consider behavior a critical foundation in the care of marine mammals, most especially one such as Keiko.

  Even so, despite the heavy focus on behavior at the heart of our proposal, something about our outlined reintroduction plan provided an opening. As a result, and to our surprise, Robin was requested to return to Iceland in March, this time for a thirty-five-day tour. On this visit he would become actively involved in privileged day-to-day operations, notwithstanding the lack of any formal engagement. We had multiple exchanges during his first two weeks back, mostly concerning Keiko, Robin’s observations, changes he made to daily interactions and his overall assessment of the operation.

  Although Robin didn’t specialize in behavioral science, he was adept at evaluating and recognizing effective and ineffective applications and describing the need for behavioral modification. Over the course of his second tour in Iceland, he was able, through example and education, to convince the decision makers that additional behavioral skill sets were desperately needed. By April, I received an itinerary for my first tour to Iceland. Robin had convinced OFS to fly Dave and me to the Vestmannaeyjar project site. Due to other demands on our schedule, I was to go first, and Dave would join us a week later.

  Map of Vestmannaeyjar showing the location of Keiko’s bay pen.

  2

  Meeting Keiko and the Release Team

  I once read that to truly experience Iceland, all one needed to do was to sit inside a walk-in freezer with coffee and a newspaper while burning a one hundred dollar bill. There is much more to Iceland than this spiteful commentary lends, though it is not entirely without justification.

  Arriving into Iceland by commercial jet requires little effort to imagine what astronauts must witness on a lunar landing. The Keflavik International Airport is about an hour’s drive southwest of the capital city of Reykjavik (ray-ka-vik). Flights originating from the United States arrive in the early morning, just as the sun crests the horizon. Coming in on final approach, there is nothing but volcanic rock as far as the eye can see. There are no trees, not many buildings to speak of and no color, not even the white of snow.

  Keflavik is surrounded by pulverized black volcanic rock, slightly larger than gravel. Like many parts of Iceland, the area is frequently subjected to high winds, winds that single-handedly challenge all forms of vertical existence leaving behind a harsh and uninviting landscape. I would soon discover that the winds around Keflavik were only a mild introduction to the North Atlantic.

  The Keiko Project was located in a small island chain southwest of the mainland referred to by foreigners as the Westman Islands or better known to locals as Vestmannaeyjar (vest-man-air). Keiko’s base of operations was located on Heimaey (hi-may), the largest and only inhabited island in the fifteen- to eighteen-island chain. There are only two ways to get to Heimaey: by ferry or small plane. Both terminals are located near Reykjavik and require a very expensive one-hour cab ride from the international airport.

  Weather permitting, the preference was to catch the twenty-five-minute flight to Heimaey onboard a nineteen-seat turboprop commuter plane. Otherwise the only remaining alternative was the four-hour ride to the small island aboard the Eimskip ferry.

  Unfortunately, when the commuter flight wasn’t flying it was usually due to severe weather conditions (a fairly common occurrence). This also meant the ferry crossing would be on par with Disney’s “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride,” with the rough seas tossing the ferry like a toy in a bathtub. As luck would have it on this maiden voyage, weather and schedules were on my side—I made the commuter flight
to the island. Nevertheless, throughout the remainder of my involvement in the project I would get to know the ferry quite well.

  I arrived in Heimaey at noon on April 27, 1999. My first dose of Icelandic adrenaline came on the small plane’s turbulent landing. I am not a fearful flyer, but nothing about this approach was reminiscent of any landing I had experienced before, even in the smallest of planes. It just so happened that the runway, positioned in line with the prevailing winds, was not in line with the prevailing winds this particular day. The pilot had to approach the runway into the wind and almost perpendicular to the short landing strip, accentuated by sheer drops on both ends. At roughly 250 feet or so above the runway, the pilot spasmodically pitched the plane hard to port and dove toward the ground. Immediately, I was looking out my window and could see nothing but asphalt. I might have lost everything in my system, had there been anything in it. As fortune would have it, I don’t eat when traveling, a complementary quirk that has served me well.

  Eventually this signature landing style would become comfortable, and I would boast that Icelandic pilots must be the best pilots in the world. But for this once, it left my knees knocking and concluded an adrenaline-packed welcome to Vestmannaeyjar that was more apropos than I would yet realize.

  Robin met me at the small island airport, and we embarked on a driving tour of Heimaey. The island was fascinating: in many ways seemingly inhospitable, but also beautifully quaint. For someone who (at the time) had not traveled the world, it was certainly an interesting place to cut my teeth. My first inclination was to believe that I had walked right onto the pages of a National Geographic pictorial, which after all, wasn’t entirely unlikely. It had every element of the old world feel complete with “rugged ole” fishing vessels and “rugged ole” fishermen.

  Much like Keflavik, Heimaey had no trees to speak of; there were the occasional saplings planted on the leeward side of individual homes and that was it. The houses and buildings were mostly white with colorful tin roofs of red, white or blue, huddled together as if to shield each other from the pounding winds that made Heimaey their playground. It took a mere glance on aerial approach to discern the island’s most valued attribute, its protected harbor, from which the town of densely packed buildings and homes radiated outward. Houses appeared more like shelters disguised as homes. Their stalwart construction put the Three Little Pigs’ handiwork to shame.

  Icelanders that call Heimaey their home are proud of the island’s many Viking charms. Among them it boasts the highest recorded winds of any populated area in Iceland. A remote weather station on the southernmost extent of the island had routinely, and I stress “routinely,” documented sustained winds of more than 140 miles per hour; the most notable records cataloging speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour.

  The heart of downtown consisted of a couple of cross streets lined with small shops, a geodesic-shaped grocery store and various multipurpose office buildings. Of course the majority of the town’s economy was centered on fisheries. This was a niche community of nearly 5,000 Icelanders that was, by short description, a remote fishing village (or a drinking village with a fishing problem). Almost fifteen percent of Iceland’s fishing exports came from this small town on Heimaey. It was a lifestyle and culture that would in ways provide both advantage and menace to the Keiko project down the road.

  The sometimes extreme elements of the far North were not the only adversary that lent to the island’s rich character. Vestmannaeyjar is the home of two notorious volcanoes, Helgafel and Eldfel. Both seem to tower over the small island town with an ageless indifference, yet no rational islander feels any indifference toward them. In 1973 Eldfel erupted and after blowing off steam for five months left the landscape forever changed. There is no shortage of locals in the Westman Islands who remember this event firsthand. Over the following many months I spent in Vestmannaeyjar, I would hear harrowing tales of the violent eruption. The lava that erupted from Eldfel covered parts of the town and increased the island’s mass by nearly one fifth. Still, Vestmannaeyjar overflowed with an otherworldly charisma, not exactly what one would expect in a place called Iceland.

  Part of the island created by the eruption in 1973 now serves as an overlook from the mouth of the island’s harbor. At the end of the short tour, Robin took us to the overlook to see the operation from a more full view and to briefly spend time alone before meeting the staff. From here I could look directly north and see the bay pen, the base of operations and Keiko’s temporary Icelandic home. In order to step out on the overlook, I had to open the car door for the first time since arriving, which was promptly ripped from my grasp by the winds funneling across the elevated observation point. Stupendous, I thought, not forty-five minutes on the island and I had already made my “mark” on the project. The door of that truck would never work smoothly again, popping and resisting each time it was opened or closed. Nice, I thought. I’m sure that will gain favor. Besides the wind, the weather was impressively mild, about twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit; not the frigid biting cold anticipated this close to the Arctic Circle. The overlook appeared more like a flat spot amidst the volcanic rock than any tourist vista, remiss of any visitor amenities. We were the only patrons of its unearthly view that afternoon.

  Waves crashing against the cliffs to the east of the overlook immediately commanded my attention. Despite the fact that the rise is well above sea level, there were geysers of saltwater being thrown high in the air above the edge of the drop-off; striking literally and figuratively. Opposite the overlook, the bay pen was nestled in a U-shaped bay just inside the mouth of a long, somewhat narrow channel. This was the entry channel to the well-protected harbor at the heart of the town.

  The bay itself was surrounded on three sides by cliffs that shot angrily straight up from the water and towered hundreds of feet over the bay. My first thought was about noise. I had seen a multitude of large ships and boats moored in the harbor on our drive through town. It was surprising to me that the bay pen was situated so close to the shipping channel. Marine mammals have very sensitive hearing and can hear sounds across a much broader range of the frequency scale than human ears can appreciate. In marine mammal circles, it’s often said that they “live in a world of sound.” The position of the bay pen placed it right in what appeared like a giant parabolic echo chamber. Surely the shipping traffic noise had to be detrimental to Keiko? Overloaded with sensory input of the surroundings myself, I quickly became distracted with the bay pen, the bull’s-eye of Klettsvik Bay.

  The structure was quite simple and from my vantage point on the overlook, appeared incredibly small. It wasn’t small, but relative to the cliffs, the massive bay and the mouth of the channel, it looked like an oddly appointed fish hatchery about the size of a tennis court. In actuality, the bay pen was almost the length of a football field and nearly seventy feet wide. The configuration was that of two octagonal circles joined by a smaller square pool in between. It did not narrow in the midsection; rather this is where the bulk of the deck space existed surrounding the small joining medical pool (or “med pool”). I could see two boxcar-looking structures placed opposite one another across the med pool. They looked as if they were balancing the bay pen from side to side. The pen’s length was situated north to south in the bay, exposing the south circle to the shipping channel. I could not make out a killer whale in the pen. I shouldn’t have expected to, the light was fading and we were roughly half a mile away.

  Over the last week, Robin had been engaged in ongoing discussions regarding our involvement in the project. He was at an impasse. On the overlook, looking out at the bay pen and shouting through the wind and crashing waves, he shared with me the primary roadblocks to our proposal.

  “They don’t believe that behavior has anything to do with the reintroduction,” Robin started.

  I was stunned. “I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean that behavior has nothing to do with it?”

  “It’s the level of ignorance running the project;
they don’t have the tools to understand what to do next or how to prepare Keiko. To some degree, and what I don’t know, they thought Keiko, once in Iceland, would show them the way. I think the only way to enlighten them is to slowly introduce them to what is needed for Keiko and explain the process in simple terms. But we’re going to have to keep it simple … even Jeff doesn’t consider behavior a part of it.”

  Jeff Foster, lead project manager, had a degree in psychology and a background in collecting wild killer whales, but he had never been involved in their training beyond that of initial acclimation. I didn’t even know how to respond to Robin’s comment.

  “Then why am I here? I mean, why did they agree to fly me up here?”

  “Because I insisted.”

  “Great, so I’m the black sheep that no one wants here or agrees with? Nice first impressions.”

  “We’ll be fine.”

  “What’s the plan?” I asked. Both of us had turned our backs to the wind, shoulders hunched up around our necks and hands shoved in our pants pockets. Robin’s jacket hood had flipped up over his head. He peered around it as he continued.

  “We’ll meet with Jeff and Jen this afternoon and then get out to the bay pen tomorrow morning.” Jen Schorr was Jeff’s right-hand and the lead organizer for research data collection. “Charles Vinick is the Ocean Futures executive vice president and the Keiko Release Project’s chief operations officer. He’s arriving Tuesday, and we’ll spend more time then or Wednesday going over the proposal and behavioral strategy.”

  I looked out over the bay. This was not exactly what I had envisioned.

  “That’s almost a week! What happens now? I mean we haven’t come to an agreement or been hired, right?” The wind was modulating and had dropped at that instant. I was still shouting, and the sudden overcompensation sounded like an outburst. Given my sinking stomach, maybe in part, it was.