His name was Keiko, and everyone agreed he was a good whale.

Keiko was one of a kind, that Keiko had like this personality completely different from any other or kind.

I mean, everybody that worked with him called him the one in a million whale.

Because no matter how far my career stretches and how long I work with marine mammals, there will never be another whale

like that.

Keiko was good at performing, beloved by the crowds at the Mexican amusement park where he lived

for more than a decade, most of his life since he was captured as a calf.

He was good with his trainers and with the kids who came to visit.

I would have taken my one-year-old daughter and put him on his back without a care or concern in the world.

He was that gentle.

And Keiko was good when he was cast in the movie Free Willy.

He played the part of Willie, of course, a captive killer whale who's befriended by a 12-year-old boy and then set free.

Very good.

Afterwards, when the world decided Keiko himself should be set free,

that he should learn how to be a wild whale,

how to hold his breath and hunt for his own food and live in the ocean,

Keiko like always, was eager to please his humans.

So everyone agreed he was good, but there were some things no one seemed to agree on.

Like, can good whales be wild whales?

It felt like bringing your pet dog out to the forest and then running away,

and the dog being hungry and scared and wanted to go home.

I was furious because I could see what we had done to him.

...