Kyaku became the most famous killer leviathan in the world
https://www.hayadan.org.il/willydied.html
Kiako, the killer whale who starred in the movie "Release Willy" suddenly died in Norway at the age of 27, a year and a half after returning to the wild. The whale, weighing six tons, suffered a sudden attack of pneumonia in the fjord where it lived.
Kiako was captured when he was two years old, but after the success of the film he was released from the closed place where he stayed in Mexico City. After his release into the wild in Iceland, Kiako swam to Norway where he became a popular attraction.
Killer whales live an average of 35 years in the wild.
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Kyaku gets sick quickly, says Dan Richards who follows Willy. "He showed signs of exhaustion and lack of appetite," said Richard. We checked his breathing rate and it was irregular. He didn't look well and in the evening he passed away," said Richards. "They die quickly and there's nothing we can do," said Nick Barden, spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States.
Kyaku, "the lucky one" in Japanese, starred in the three films of the series in which a young boy befriends a killer whale and encourages him to jump over the wall of the aquarium to freedom in the ocean. He was caught near Iceland in 1979 and transferred to a water park in Mexico.
Inspired by the film, an international campaign began in 1993 to free Kaiko and return him to the wild - the first large whale released in this way. "We took him from near death in Mexico to swimming with whales in Norway," said David Phillips, director of the Free Willy-Kiako Foundation. After being trained to catch fish, Kiako was released off the coast of Iceland in July 2002 and swam to Norway, where he became popular when he moved to a relatively remote fjord for convenience.
Phillips said he has not decided whether the whale should be buried at sea or on land. "My preference is to bury him on land," he said. "If we bury him on land, his skeleton can be kept in a museum, but we are still considering the matter." added
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The whale that played "Willy" was buried on land
The famous killer whale Keiko - who starred in the movie "Releasing Willy" - was buried on the night between Monday and Monday near the Norwegian bay where he spent the last months of his life. Keiko, who was estimated to be 26, died last Friday, apparently from pneumonia. Dead whales are usually dragged to the sea, but the Foundation for the Liberation of Keiko, which supported failed attempts to return him to wild life, requested that he be buried on land, and the Norwegian authorities agreed. Keiko was first captured off the coast of Iceland, and for 20 years he appeared in parks in Mexico and the USA. Thanks to the large revenues from the film that brought him publicity, Keiko was returned to Iceland, hoping to join other whales in the wild, but he reappeared off the Norwegian coast.
