Keiko, killer whale who starred in 'Free Willy,' buried in Norway

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OSLO, Norway -- Keiko, the killer whale star of the ``Free Willy'' movies, was buried Monday in a snow-bound pasture during the deep darkness of Nordic winter in a ceremony kept secret from the public.

``We wanted to let him be at peace,'' said Dane Richards, one of his caretakers. ``He's free now and in the wild.

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Does anybody else find this ridiculous? It's a freaking whale! Don't you think it would appreciate a burial at sea a little more than becoming a 6 ton mound of dirt on the side of a hill?

The death of a whale at sea yields a bounty of nutrients that can be consumed by top and bottom level consumers alike. Burying a whale on land consigns this animal to be nothing more than mulch and worm food.

B

What kind of flowers would you get?

Hold on for a second.


Why "bury", in soil, a sea creature?

Doesn't that seem kind of absurd, I mean in nature keiko would have died in the sea and become part of the food chain.

Just seems counterintuitive to me.

I don't think that poor Keiko had much of a chance to become a successful wil killer whale. Taken captive at two, I don't think she was able to learn how to act and hunt like her wild cousins.

Perhaps we can say that this sad cetacean suffered from a case of the Stockholm Syndrome?

May she fare better in the world to come.