Killing Keiko (51 page)

In the aftermath of Jim’s departure, the project’s executive management recognized
at once the cataclysmic gap in experience left behind. Charles had been deeply ingrained
in the frontline of release operations since shortly after Keiko’s arrival in Iceland.
He understood better than most the downward spiral in the quality of hands-on leadership.
The dumbing-down of the project was palpable to him. He had lived it, he had orchestrated
it. Charles had been devoutly loyal to OFS founder Jean-Michel for many years. And
though his desire to see the project forth in excellence was in many ways genuine,
financial battle lines had been drawn. He now focused on the survival of OFS and protecting
his dear friend’s name.

Ultimately, OFS relinquished control of the project to HSUS. For OFS the transition
was a fire escape. Financially the weakest among the trio of organizations invested
in the project, OFS could not sustain the cost of leadership any longer. Effectively,
Charles’ management of field operations was callously handed over to the supervision
of Dr. Naomi Rose, a lead biologist for HSUS. The wealthiest of animal rights organizations
HSUS had been financially involved in the FWKF since before Keiko’s move to Iceland.

Naomi was notoriously outspoken. Interminably confident in her perceptions, made righteous
by what ostensibly rivaled that of a holy mission, her views and her tactics were
known within the zoological community. Contrary to the stereotypes of the animal rights
continuum, Naomi looked like a fourth-grade teacher, who had just walked off the canvas
of a Norman Rockwell schoolyard painting. Her fair-skinned complexion was outlined
by bobbing dark hair with graying highlights. Short and a bit plump, she was not
physically adapted to fieldwork nor did she instill confidence in those who worked
around her with any regularity.

Some would say that in her view of the world, zoos and aquaria represented no more
than vile trafficking in animals, an assured genocide carried out by evil perpetrators
remiss of conscience. If there was a means to her end, her convictions afforded her
great latitude in whatever it took to reach that end. By her actions and her words,
she seemed to hold killer whales in higher regard than most other forms of life, animal
or human. While the study of killer whale natural behavior was her claim to career
fame, her Ph.D. was based on a hundred or so hours observing killer whales in the
wild. Naomi had no more experience in the daily care of a killer whale than does a
visitor to a SeaWorld park.

Trainers were of no value to Naomi. She believed release was a biologist’s domain,
and this rightfully and fittingly hers. From the perch in her watchtower, her view
of the project was unwavering. She would show them all it could be done, that she
could release even the most difficult candidate. She would show them. She would win.
Come hell or high water, Keiko would be deemed freed. In Naomi’s world, no other outcome
existed.

In prior years, Naomi had been no more than a casual guest to the Icelandic base of
operations. Her cursory visits to Heimaey in the course of Keiko’s rehabilitation
had been infrequent. Although she masterminded operations going forward in a more
active role, Naomi was not the boots on the ground field leader. To fulfill this vacancy
of seasoned leadership, HSUS hired former whale trainer Colin Baird (no relation to
Robin Baird). A Canadian in his thirties, Colin’s experience with killer whales stemmed
from a decade working as an animal trainer at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria,
British Columbia.

Sealand of the Pacific, an antiquated facility, was a remnant of a 1970s ideal in
marine life presentation. The small facility was literally a semi-open watercraft
no larger than Keiko’s bay pen. Only it was not solely limited to housing Sealand’s
three killer whales, their marquee attraction. In fact, the floating facility
moored in a Victoria harbor shared its space with a number of sea lions, a seal exhibit
and guest entrance/gift shop. Killer whale housing within the wooden vessel was limited
to two pools. The main a rectangular pool contained by a double-walled seine net pursed
at depth, the other a small medical pool scarcely large enough for an adult whale
to turn about.

Categorically outdated, Sealand was long overdue for its place in the history books.
But it wasn’t the size of Sealand or its age that were most notable in the context
of Colin’s resume and newly acquired responsibility over Keiko. What seeped through
the cracks of Sealand’s history was the arcane training practices employed on and
around her decks. In an ironic twist of fate, little difference existed between Colin
Baird’s alma mater and the Mexican home where Keiko’s journey began.

Sealand’s animal trainers were people, and like most people, good natured and genuine
in their affections for the animals in their care. But donning the hood does not a
monk make. Like many facilities before her, Sealand’s methodologies were passed down
through the ages, their origins steeped in the trial and error of early pioneers in
animal training. They did not get into the water with their killer whales. They could
not. A product of deprivation, social isolation and punishment, the whales with which
Colin cut his teeth in animal training were lost to them through the mix of pseudo-science
techniques applied; methods disguised in the old-school language of the trade.

This description is not in its entirety a fair evaluation of the whole. There is little
doubt that caregivers at Sealand loved their animals and committed themselves to providing
the best care with the tools they inherited. Nonetheless, an acute shortfall of many
facilities like Sealand presented supreme consequence in Keiko’s plight; the lack
of a sophisticated and empirical understanding of the principles of learning.

In the annals of zoological history, in-water interactions with the world’s top predator
were the impetus behind the advancement of applied behaviorism. So impactful was the
early development of in-water interactions with five-ton predators that the very foundations
of animal training were erased, only to be rewritten in the manifest of applied science.
These advancements in animal behavior and learning far surpassed the one-dimensional
practices first employed in marine mammal care. Today, they form the backbone of zoological
sciences in the specialized care of countless species. As profoundly important as
this understanding is, it cannot be understated as related to leadership of the release
effort.

Defying this critical foundation, Keiko’s release moved forward with what would equate
to third-string experience piloting a jet at twice the speed of sound. On the grandest
stage, amidst a delicate phase of the introduction, HSUS gambled with mankind’s most
ambitious animal reintroduction and the fate of a world-famous whale.

Tainted by the restrictive dictates of budget, their decisions now laid waste to every
fragile accomplishment that hung in the balance. This period marked the greatest of
many monumental shifts in the course of the Keiko Release Project. Profound under-currents
yet to be revealed began their trajectory here, in the aftershock of HSUS assumed
custody over the project. An unspeakable alternative belayed by the unyielding agenda
of Naomi and the naïveté of her field commander, Keiko was silently stripped of choice.

In earlier seasons, despite other varied alterations in strategy, the staff had maintained
the devised neutral position of the walk-boat when Keiko was in the vicinity of wild
whales. As agonizingly painful as it was to wait sometimes hours for the whales to
clear, it was a prime directive not to interfere. Many of the staff outside the behavior
team failed to understand the crucial significance of this directive. Even the starting
of the engines or slight movement of the boat at the wrong time could and would influence
Keiko’s behavior. His history and bond with the walk-boat was unavoidably made stronger
still when it became the only source of familiarity in his strange new world. This,
compounded by his first traumatic encounter in the wild, made the walk-boat such a
powerful stimulus, it became both the path and the barrier to his freedom. We continued
to closely follow his doomed saga through communication with our contacts, who provided
detailed accounts.

During the third and final season of walks and introductions hosted from the Icelandic
base of operations a fatal flaw in judgment betrayed the very goals of the hard-won
ocean walks and each chance encounter with wild orca. In the emerging season of 2002,
decisions made on the high seas surrounding Vestmannaeyjar became practical, dictated
by hands-on people, albeit ill-equipped to understand the roads traveled and the necessary
path ahead. Among them Michael Parks, big of heart and unquestionably devoted to Keiko’s
success, was a boat captain by trade. The staff considerably reduced, Michael now
played a substantial role in
deciding the daily routine between Keiko and the wild pods. Initially hired on as
a laborer in the building of the bay pen, Michael became the only common thread with
more time on location than any other single individual.

In Michael’s world, things got done by action, not sitting idly by and hoping for
the best. To him, the inaction of drifting in neutrality while Keiko floated nearby
at the surface yet away from the wild pods was nothing if not an asinine waste of
time.
Why sit here and allow him to float while the wild pod disappears over the horizon?
We need to get him back to the whales, as many times as it takes
. These thoughts dominated Michael’s disposition toward the task at hand. The more
he could get Keiko close to the wild pods the better. There was no sense in sitting
idle or waiting, it was that simple.
After all, waiting for what?

As a result of the seemingly innocuous adjustment in protocol, Keiko amassed more
time in the company of wild whales than he had in all prior seasons combined. Yet
those unions were always facilitated and prolonged by the overbearing edicts of the
walk-boat. Each time Keiko departed from the wild whales, no time was wasted; the
walk-boat promptly guided Keiko back to the company of his would-be acquaintances.
Outwardly, their approach appeared to shift the balance. Keiko began spending more
time away from the walk-boat in the wake of each shepherded introduction. In reality,
the delicate balance of learning betrayed what the eyes could measure.

Immediately returning Keiko to the wild whales each time he decided to leave them
set together a series of incessant consequences—consequences that lent to Keiko’s
avoidance of the walk-boat.

In the presence of the wild whales, Keiko learned (was taught) that rejoining the
walk-boat resulted in a mandated return to the pod. The conflicting elements at work
set the conditions for learned helplessness, a trait long dominant in Keiko’s disposition.
So it was that he neither joined the wild whales, nor returned to his mother ship.
Without knowledge of the invisible forces at work, Michael’s
call to action taught Keiko to place himself safely in no-man’s land, in the purgatory
between acceptance and avoidance. Keiko became an interloper; a lone whale denied
his station, denied a welcoming home.

Throughout July, efforts to integrate Keiko with any available wild pod continued
in haste. Following many of the encounters, the team sought to confirm that Keiko
was eating something, anything … aside from the minor amounts of fish they supplemented.

On two such occasions, they witnessed Keiko diving near a wild pod that appeared to
be actively feeding. In the one instance, he was immediately surrounded by five of
the larger whales. Keiko quickly swam away from the intimidation. Trained in voluntary
gastric sampling, they tested Keiko in hopes that his stomach contents would reveal
ingested fish. The results showed nothing.

In early August, he had moved away from the known location where schools of herring
occupied the trophic region near the water’s surface. Tracking information placed
him on top of a biomass of blue whiting and squid. But both species remain deep during
the day only to ascend within Keiko’s reach at nighttime. Dive data from the sat-tag
showed that Keiko had not gone deep enough to reach either food source.

Try as they might, every telltale sign that led to tentative optimism was dashed upon
further investigation. Although Keiko was provided food from the release team, the
sparse amounts were not nearly enough to sustain a whale of his size. They did not
know when hunger would motivate Keiko to find his own sustenance. They also didn’t
know how long a whale could go without food.

During periods of prolonged absence from the walk-boat the team relied on a special-purpose
tracking vessel to keep tabs on Keiko’s location. In July, Keiko repeatedly approached
the tracking boat, at times remaining close to her side for hours. The crew was instructed
to go below decks and ignore the solicitations. The instruction was meant to deter
Keiko’s interest in the distantly familiar boat. In at least one instance, while the
crew waited in the cabin for Keiko to leave, they could readily hear the sounds of
his vocalizations as he pressed his head to the side of the hull.