Good news on Keiko.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's still a bit premature to say that Keiko, the famous killer whale of the movie, "Free Willy," has permanently returned to the wild with other orcas. But the latest news from the U.S. Humane Society - Keiko's new overseer - is that all signs point to just that probability.

That contention is disputed by the whale's former keepers, members of Oregon Futures Society, a California environmental group. They contend that the new keepers haven't checked on Keiko up close and personal from a boat and that he might be roaming alone in the open sea instead of with pods of other orcas.

But if the indications from the current keepers are correct and Keiko has indeed left behind his protective pen in Iceland's Westmann Islands, it will be a major victory for the professionals who rescued the giant mammal from sickness and near starvation in a Mexican amusement park, brought him to a specially built $7.3 million, 2 million-gallon tank at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport for extensive rehabilitation and then a return to the Icelandic waters where he was born some 25 years ago.

During Keiko's stay in Newport, from January 1996 to September 1998, he was visited by more than 2.5 million people who paid up to $8.75 each watch him through underwater windows in his tank.

Earlier this month, we wrote about Keiko's hesitant forays into the open sea, only to return to his pen for the certainty of meals and medicine. But since then, according to the Humane Society, there have been several promising developments on the Keiko front. Among them:

He's been swimming free since July 8, when his keepers in a boat escorted him from his pen.

He returned to his pen in mid-July, but only for one day.

Through monitoring devices, his keepers have determined that he has been diving deep, which is what wild whales do when they forage. This indicates, say his keepers, that Keiko is probably feeding on live fish. He was last hand-fed on July 24.

On July 27, his keepers got close enough to take still photos of and to videotape him. They reported then that he "looked terrific."

The keepers saw Keiko up close for the last time on July 30, after which they tracked him traveling east with wild whales that usually move out of Icelandic waters in August,.

He's reported to be swimming as far as 80 miles a day off the Faroe Islands about 175 miles north of Scotland.

At this point, Keiko is traveling more than 250 miles from Iceland, an encouraging sign that he's adapting to other orcas and to the open sea.

The bottom line at this point is that Keiko does not appear to be dependent on his human keepers. The big unknown remains whether he will continue with the same pod and spend the winter with them far out to sea. Animal lovers and lovers of happy endings should fervently hope he does. And then the star of "Free Willy" will truly be free. And without a movie script in sight.