Truth About Killing Keiko: What SeaWorld Doesn’t Want You To Know About Freeing Killer Whales
Killing Keiko, a book by ex-SeaWorld trainer and dolphin trafficker Mark Simmons, claims that the campaign to free the orca whale named Keiko was a failure. According to Simmons, the true story of Keiko, the world’s most famous killer whale, and his release to Icelandic waters, has gone untold.
Don’t be fooled. The truth is that Simmons, and captivity businesses like SeaWorld, don’t want you to know that freeing killer whales is a viable option – and an ethical obligation. Because they make money off of the lives of these animals, they want to deny the success of the Free Willy/Keiko Project and want to keep captive orcas in small concrete tanks.
Simmons has deep and dirty ties to the captivity industry. He worked at SeaWorld as a trainer for years. He even supplies the industry with dolphins – he kidnapped 25 dolphins from the Solomon Islands and shipped them to an infamous facility in Singapore, under his company Ocean Embassy. Cetacean wellbeing is clearly the last thing on his mind.
Why would Simmons and places like SeaWorld want the world to think that freeing killer whales is a bad idea? Because their goal is to keep orcas performing and on public display until the day they die. That way, Simmons can continue to capture and sell wild cetaceans to these companies, and the industry can keep selling tickets to an unsuspecting public.
According to Amazon.com’s book review of Killing Keiko, the Free Willy Keiko project was “doomed from the start”. But this statement blatantly ignores the facts. Our organization founded the Free Willy Keiko Foundation and helped facilitate the entire project. We were there, so we know that Simmons was naysaying the successful project even from the beginning of his involvement.
Here are some facts from our successful project to free Keiko:
- Took the least healthy captive orca whale in the world and brought him back to full health, curing his papilloma virus and bringing his weight up by 2000 pounds.
- Successfully helped Keiko relearn how to catch live fish – a skill that was destroyed by the captivity industry.
- Successfully transitioned Keiko from a horribly inadequate tank in Mexico to a netted off bay pen in Iceland -- 1000 times the size of the largest sea pen currently in existence.
- Successfully brought Keiko out into the company of wild Icelandic orca whales, where he was able to swim freely and interact with them for the first time since his capture as an infant.
We are keeping Keiko’s legacy alive to help guide future efforts to rescue, release and/or retire orcas and other marine mammals. Read more about our work.
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