M ore than 20 years ago, Keiko the Orca, star of the movie Free Willy, died in Taknes Fjord in Norway after being released back into the wild.Some critics say that Keiko's release was a failure ...

Keiko who, you may ask? Keiko was a male orca captured in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland in 1979 as a 2-year-old. He was sold to the Icelandic Aquarium in Hafnarfjörður soon after.

When Free Willy splashed on to the silver screen in 1993, little did people imagine the wave of applause the film would ...

According to a release from The Good Whale, after Free Willy became an unexpected hit, fans learned the orca who played Willy in the movie — a killed whale named Keiko — was ill and living in ...

Dave Phillips, a scientist that helped to rewild Keiko, the orca who starred in "Free Willy," is working to help two other killer whales, Wikie and Keijo, move from a closed marine park to a sea ...

Controversies over what was best for Keiko raged for years, and now the story of the orca is being told again, in a new podcast, “The Good Whale,” from The New York Times and Serial ...

Keiko died of pneumonia at age 27 — slightly less than the average age of death in a wild male orca. Simmons, who is a firm believer in zoos, said, “Lolita’s current situation is inexcusable.

Keiko was in his early 20s — still young for an orca — when he was brought to Iceland in 1998. To teach him to hunt, trainers would launch fish around his pen with a sling shot.

This is the story of a wildly ambitious science experiment to return Keiko to the ocean — while the world watched. A new limited podcast series from Serial Productions and the New York Times.

Keiko died of pneumonia at age 27 — slightly less than the average age of death in a wild male orca. Simmons, who is a firm believer in zoos, said, “Lolita’s current situation is inexcusable.