Keiko bothered by fans

October 07/02

Far from free:
    Some Norwegians can't resist Keiko, the killer whale made famous by the movie Free Willy, despite official efforts to keep him secluded.
   An eight-year-old girl spent hours the other day playing the film's theme to the whale on her harmonica.
   "That's just the kind of thing we don't need," Colin Baird, Keiko's trainer, said Friday.
   Mr. Baird is part of a $20-million US effort to return the whale to the wild.
   Keiko, nearly 25, turned up in a western Norway's Skaalvik fjord in early September after swimming 1,400 kilometres following his release off Iceland in July. The orca drew hundreds of fans who swam with him, petted him and climbed on his back until Norwegian authorities imposed a ban on approaching the killer whale.

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