Freeing Willy: A Cost-Benefit Analysis | Retro Report

In the wake of the 1993 hit movie Free Willy, activists and fans campaigned to release the movie’s star – a captive killer whale named Keiko – and launched a story Hollywood couldn’t invent. 

The hope was that like Willy in the movie, Keiko could return to the ocean, find his wild orca  pod and swim happily into the sunset, setting a precedent for the release of other captive animals. Unlike the Hollywood version of the story, however, freeing Keiko took a lot more than a cinematic leap over a breakwater. After viewing the film, students use a cost-benefit analysis to decide if rehabilitating Keiko so he could return to the wild was worthwhile.