Keiko's handlers see setback.

Byline: LARRY BACON The Register-Guard

The fact that Keiko the killer whale has managed to swim nearly 900 miles from Iceland to Norway and find enough food to remain "fat and happy" has the two organizations that groomed him for freedom ecstatic.

But news photos of the former "Free Willy" movie star having his back scratched by kids and mooching handouts in Skaalvik Fjord, a popular tourist area 250 miles northwest of Oslo, don't sit well with leaders of the Humane Society of the United States and the California-based Free Willy Keiko Foundation.

"Setback," was the word used in a statement issued by the organizations that worked to make Keiko the first captive killer whale to return to the wild.

But members of the Keiko team have no immediate plans to intervene and lead the 33-foot-long adventurer back into the open ocean. "What we are trying to do right now is to get him to lead himself out of there," Nick Braden, a Humane Society spokesman, said Wednesday. "Hopefully he will lose interest and move off into the waters of the Atlantic."

Braden also dismissed as "outrageous" a statement in news reports Wednesday by Norwegian whale expert Nils Oeien, who claimed that Keiko - used to life in captivity - had little chance of surviving a winter in the frigid western Norway fjords.

``Then it would be better to put him to death,'' Oeien said in an interview broadcast by NRK, Norwegian state radio. He could not be reached for more comment.

Given Keiko's celebrity status and the affection people have for him in all over the world, any attempt to harm him would generate an untold amount of public wrath, said Mark Berman, associate director of the Free Willy Keiko Foundation.

Oeien's comments found plenty of rebuttal in Norway, but others, including Jan Einarsen, director of a Norway aquarium, also voiced concern about the orca's ability to survive a Norwegian winter on his own.

Einarsen suggested that Keiko be given food and human companionship in some remote area over the winter and said it's imperative that his sponsors come up with an action plan.

Dag Paulsen, a spokesman for the Norwegian Fisheries Ministry, suggested trying to coax Keiko out of the fjord with food.

For now, Braden said, the plan is to wage a publicity campaign - especially near the fjord where Keiko is located - to persuade people to leave him alone. The team is also seeking the support of the Norwegian government in that effort.

Berman acknowledged that Keiko has been trained to respond to signals to follow a boat, and might still do so.

"Our intention is no contact or as little contact as possible," he said. "We don't want to intervene with whistles or boats or anything else. It would be just like the old days."

The statement issued by the humane society and the foundation said Keiko apparently entered the fjord by following a fishing boat. However, Berman said Keiko is also finding a rich supply of cod and herring in the fjord.

There are indications that the interaction with Keiko and the public is lessening, he said, as the message gets out that Keiko is a wild animal and humans who get too close could be in danger.

If it becomes apparent that long-term interaction between Keiko and the people in Skaalvik Fjord is going to continue, Berman said, scientists working on the Keiko project will probably re-examine the situation.

Keiko has a thick layer of fat, and fish remain plentiful in Norwegian waters in the winter, so he shouldn't have any problem surviving the coldest months, Berman and Braden said. They said the team is prepared to step in with whatever assistance is necessary if Keiko gets in trouble.

"We are going to keep track of him, and we are not going to abandon him," Berman said.

As the winter wears on, however, that may become difficult. The batteries in Keiko's satellite transmitter - which has provided the best method for tracking him - are scheduled to run down at the end of the month, or could last into November, Braden said.

Loss of satellite tracking would leave only a VHF radio transmitter, which has no over-the-horizon capability. Batteries in the radio are expected to last the winter.

Team members hope Keiko will return to the open ocean and join an orca pod. They're not sure whether he was with a pod when he crossed the Atlantic to Norway.

But even if he finds no pod and remains alone, Braden said, Keiko should be fine as long as he can find food. Some male orcas in the wild remain solitary, he said.

"It's not urgent right now that he be with a pod," he said. "This is a slow process."

The Free Willy Keiko Foundation, which raised the money to help rescue a sickly Keiko from a Mexican amusement park in 1996, has legal custody of Keiko, but the Humane Society manages the Keiko project.

After leaving Mexico, Keiko was rehabilitated at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport before being flown to Iceland, where he was captured as a 2-year-old.

That goal of freeing him appeared to be near when Keiko, after nearly four years of training and preparation in an Icelandic bay, left his trainers during an escorted "open ocean" exposure to wild whales in July and headed east toward Norway - apparently foraging for himself for the first time .

Pictures taken Aug. 30 in the Skaalvik Fjord refuted concerns made public by Keiko's former handlers that he might starve on his ocean odyssey, Braden said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CAPTION(S):

Norwegians (from left) Odd Kyrre Lund, Oeyvind Lorentsen and Kolbjoern Lorentsen admire Keiko the killer whale in western Norway's Skaalvik Fjord on Monday. Associated Press A visitor reaches out Wednesday to pet Keiko in Skaalvik Fjord. The killer whale's guardians hope he will return to the ocean.