When the movie “Free Willy” is released, word gets out that the star, a killer whale named Keiko, is sick and living in a tiny pool at a Mexican amusement park. An environmentalist sets out to give the fans what they want: their favorite celebrity orca back in the sea.
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Times games@nytimes.com games our story begins in the early 90s with an orca named Keiko.
He's just entering his teenage years, living at an amusement park in Mexico City called Reyno Aventura, or Adventure Kingdom.
He's not from there, but for the last seven years, a tank in this polluted landlocked megacity more than 7,000ft above sea level, has been his home.
Before that, it was a marine park in Canada where he was bullied by the other orcas.
Before that, it was a tank in a big concrete building in Iceland, where he was kept for about three years, unable to see the sky.
And even before that, it was the North Atlantic, where he was captured and separated from his mom and the rest of his whale pod, probably when he was around 2.
I don't think I really understood how traumatic this could have been until I learned that male killer whales are essentially mama's boys, and not just when they're young, but basically their entire lives.
Even as adults, they might swim by their mother's side.
They depend on her.
A mother orca might catch a fish, bite it in two, and give half to her son.
This kind of closeness is documented in male orcas well into their 20s or 30s, and Keiko was deprived of the chance to have that.