The $14 million epic adventure to free Willy - into an unknown future

IN THE small Pacific fishing port of Newport, Oregon, a countdown has begun that s drawing more attention than a shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. Blast-off is set for 1.15pm, local time, today. But it is not a space rocket they are sending up to the heavens, however. It is a killer whale.

We are talking, of course, about Keiko, the black and white Orca who first swam into our children's hearts in 1993 as the star of the wildlife weepy, Free Willy. Now, in a case of life imitating art, this 10,000lb hulk is being given the chance of freedom. Today an aquarium in Newport, tomorrow the chilly Atlantic waters of the Vestmann Islands off Iceland.

What begins this afternoon is an experiment in mammal rehabilitation on a scale never before attempted. Depending on your point of view, it is either a testament to our new-found respect for our companion beasts on the planet or an absurd display of do-gooding sentimentality on which millions will be spent that might otherwise have gone towards other more urgent ecological causes. The scientific value of the exercise is expected to be minimal.

It is almost 20 years since Keiko, then a tiddler among whales, was first captured off the Icelandic coast and doomed to a life shuttling between aquariums that brought him finally to a water park in Mexico City. There he was spotted by casting scouts from Warner Brothers films and picked for the film that made him famous about a young boy, Jesse, who fights to save Willy from an owner who means to kill him for insurance money. The movie ends with him leaping a breakwater to the ocean.

It was after the film's box- office triumph that its irony became public. Unlike his character, Keiko was still stranded in Mexico in a tank that was too small and far too warm for him and in a deteriorating state of health. He had unsightly carbuncles on his fins and could barely hold his breath under water. Then the Free Willy Keiko Foundation offered him sanctuary in Oregon.

That was in 1996. A $7.3m, two-million-gallon, salt-water tank was built for Keiko, complete with a giant-screen colour television and all the fish he could eat. There, for two years, he has been pampered like a babe. Trainers have rubbed his tummy on demand and crowds have been flocking to view his friendly frolics through windows in the tank.

The nurturing of Keiko has so far cost the foundation $10m (pounds 6.1m), some of it vacuumed from the piggy banks of America's children, desperate to get one glimpse of their celluloid hero and to buy the souvenir flotsam he has spawned. One beneficiary has been Newport, which has been transformed from a creaking lumber and fishing town to a tourist destination. Nor has it been bad for Keiko. He has lost most of his warts, caused by a virus, and put on 1,900 muscular pounds.

Now Newport must wave goodbye to Keiko. His incredible journey will begin this afternoon when he is rolled on to a canvas sling already attached to a scaffold next to his pool. From the sling he will be deposited inside a glass fibre and steel box, which will be lowered into a giant lorry. Next stop will be the local airport and an awaiting C-17 Air Force transport plane. He will then face a nine-hour flight to Iceland, with two inflight refuellings from an accompanying KC-10 tanker plane. On board, he will be repeatedly soaked in 40F fresh salt water. No movies, though.

Keiko's estimated time of arrival at Heimaey in the Vestmann Islands is 8am tomorrow. There, everything will be ready. At a cost of another $12m, a football field-sized pen has been built in a bay with large mesh sides and a clear plastic bottom. With teams of veterinarians to watch over him, Keiko will call this home until the time for his release into the open ocean.

Whether that moment will in fact ever arrive is a matter for speculation. It is the best hope of the Keiki Foundation that over several months, its ward will adapt to life back in his natural habitat.

Once more he will experience the currents and noises of the ocean - including, it is assumed, the calls of his fellow killer whales - as well as to other ocean fauna that should swim through the holes in the mesh to join him.

But the risk of failure is considerable. What memories, if any, of living in the wild can Keiko have after two decades of interacting with trainers and schoolchildren?

"If they end up letting him go, he'll have to adapt to a very different environment. He's not going to get his tummy rubbed," said Brad Andrews, of the Sea World theme parks. "His skills are by no means what he'd need in the wild."

His trainers in Oregon have done their best to prepare him. Where once dead fish were simply dumped in Keiko's open mouth, recently he has been feeding on fish that are still wriggling. He has even shown some ability in chasing fish left to swim in his tank. Even so, his rustiness as a hunter will be a particular worry if ever he is let go. Have his instincts as a killer whale stayed with him?

Another worry is his communications skills. For Keiko to survive, he will need to attach himself to a larger pod of whales coursing the Atlantic. But first he will need to locate other whales and befriend them. "Though we are hopeful, he may never find his family again. But when other killer whales migrate we hope they will communicate and over time he may be adopted by a group," suggested Kim Wood, of the Born Free animal welfare charity.

Ken Balcomb, the director of the Center for Whale Research in Washington, has his doubts. "Keiko's been a big teddy whale all his life," he said this week. "He may be a winner in people's hearts, but to other whales he's a loser with a skin condition".

Even worse could happen. It has not escaped the attention of some that this animal, upon which so many millions have been expended, is hardly an adolescent.

Most Orcas survive to about 30 and Keiko, we know, must be 20 at least. The prospect must exist, therefore, that his Icelandic pen will turn out to be his retirement home and final resting place rather than a halfway house.

Nor, in the meantime, is everyone happy among the local Vestmann fishing industry. Some experts warn that Keiko could become a local pest, scavenging fishing boats and ports for free meals. To Keiko, after all, boats and human equal lunch, not danger.

One local boat owner has already publicly threatened to do the beloved creature in by dumping poisoned fish into his pen.

Still, the folk at the Keiko Foundation cling on to their optimism.

"We've the world's attention. We're not going to take any shortcuts," insisted its spokesman, Jeff Foster. "We've planned for every contingency."

Additional reporting by Fiona Bell

Willy on the Internet

Iceland Welcomes Keiko Back

http://keiko.vestmannaeyjar.is/

Free Willy Keiko Foundation is planning a live webcast of Keiko's move http://www.keiko.org/home/story/index.html