Keiko's Body a Threat to Nature?

Jan. 16, 2004 — Keiko the whale, the star of the "Free Willy" movies who died last month of pneumonia and was buried in Norway, could pose an environmental hazard, Norwegian environmentalists warned recently.

The six-ton carcass of the killer whale could contain about half a kilogram (one pound) of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that have been absorbed and built up over the 27 years of his life.

Kaare Olerud, spokesman for the Norwegian Organization for the Protection of Nature, said the body's decomposition could pollute Keiko's burial site or even the groundwater.

It's a potential threat, nothing has been done to prevent it," he told AFP.

"But we wanted to use Keiko's fame to draw the public's attention to the threat of sea pollution by toxic products and its repercussions for the whole food chain," he added.

Due to his celebrity status, the killer whale was buried on land after suddenly succumbing to pneumonia in December despite a tradition which dictates that sea mammals find their final resting place at sea.

The killer whale was captured in 1979 off the coast of Iceland when he was about two years old.

He spent most of his life in captivity, mostly in water theme parks and starring in movies, including the "Free Willy" trilogy about a boy trying to free a whale from captivity.

The warning comes after U.S. and Canadian researchers announced that farmed salmon contained significantly higher levels of toxic substances than the more expensive wild variety.

Dont drink the water, Don't breathe the air all food is contaminated kinda sounds like the movie Soylent Green

Take a scientist and a newsman to lunch, and eat them. Then we could all stop worrying about little foolish things and get along with our lives. Way too many Chicken Littles on the world.

We aren't going to get out of this life alive. Soylent Green, people eating people, yum, yum.

I never really understood the need to bury him on land anyway, drag him out to sea and let him rot the normal way.