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From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

OREGON COAST AQUARIUM

Mr. HATFIELD. Mr. President, for 30 years I have had the pleasure of
representing a State known for its emphasis on educating its citizens
on the importance of understanding and preserving their surrounding
environment. The Oregon Coast Aquarium serves as a wonderful example of
this unique spirit of conservation.
Visitors at the Oregon Coast Aquarium are able to experience the
indigenous coastal habitat and view many examples of marine creatures
and plant life. However, the aquarium is much more than a collection of
exhibits, it is an education center. The theme chases a raindrop from
the moment it drops from the sky and hits the Coast Range, until it
reaches its final destination, the Pacific Ocean. By following this
path through numerous interactive exhibits, theaters, and touch pools,
children and adults alike are able to learn about the native Oregon
coastal environment and its important function.
Located just south of Newport along the scenic Oregon coastline, the
Oregon Coast Aquarium has recently become the rehabilitation center for
the 16-year-old orca whale Keiko, known for his role in the movie
``Free Willy.'' The aquarium was selected by the Earth Island
Institute, whose job it was to find a suitable new home for the 21-
foot-long and 7,000-pound killer whale, as the only facility in the
country that satisfied the necessary criteria. Keiko was transported,
via a UPS B-130 cargo jet, to the aquarium from an amusement park in
Mexico, where his health had been rapidly deteriorating. Since his
arrival in January, Keiko has steadily improved and is moving ever
closer to the goal of his eventual release.
I am honored today to recognize the Oregon Coast Aquarium and welcome
the most recent addition to our coastal waters.
On Sunday, July 28, 1996, the New York Times published a full page
article on Keiko and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a copy of this article be
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From the New York Times, July 28, 1996]

Willy Not Free, but Mending

(By Donald S. Olson)

On Jan. 7 of this year thousands of people lined Highway
101 south of Newport, Ore., to welcome a 7,720-pound, 21-
foot-long celebrity from Mexico City. Keiko, the 16-year-old
orca whale who starred in the movie ``Free Willy,'' arrived
by U.P.S. B-130 cargo jet. He was loaded onto a flatbed truck
and hauled past cheering crowds to his new home, the Oregon
Coast Aquarium. Several aquariums wanted Keiko, but the
Oregon Coast was chosen because it was the only one with the
space to build a pool large enough to rehabilitate him for
possible release into the wild--the first such attempt ever
made with a captive orca.
Since it opened in 1992, the magnificent 37-acre facility,
about two and a half hours southwest of Portland, has drawn
me back to Newport and the coastal region around Yequina Bay
several times. Situated on the bay's south side, adjacent to
an estuary teeming with wildlife, the aquarium is designed in
the vernacular of seaside buildings such as boat sheds, with
imaginative interior detail. The pillars, for instance, are
cast with sandy reliefs of marine life, and the doorhandles
are octopus tentacles and heron heads cast in bronze.
A sculptured school of 150 thrashing coho salmon hanging in
the front entry hall leads to the first exhibit, where a
short video introduces the concept behind the aquarium.
Following the course of a raindrop that falls in the Coast
Range, trickles down streams, flows into rivers, washes
through wetlands and finally reaches the sea, the galleries,
arranged in a circular pattern, present a cross-section of
various coastal habitats linked by water into one vast inter-
connected marine ecosystem.

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The first gallery focuses on Oregon's sandy beaches, which
support crabs, shrimps, sea stars, sea pens and sand dollars.
The flatfish, whose camouflage abilities are highlighted in a
special tank, is one of the stranger creatures on view. As it
grows it changes color, its eyes migrate toward one another,
and it begins to swim sideways. A central floor-to-ceiling
walk-around tank recreates the pier-and-pilings environment
found along Newport's Bay Front. Leopard sharks, smelt and
tubesnouts glide in and out among the piers, barnacles and
anemones attach themselves to pilings.
A favorite spot for children (and many adults) is the Touch
Pool in the next gallery, called Rocky Shores. Here, under
the genial tutelage of aquarium volunteers, visitors can
gently stroke starfish and chitons. Smaller tanks contain
oddities like the grunt sculpin, which crawls or leaps across
rocks with broad, fingerlike fins, the pea sized spiny
lumpsucker and the decorated war bonnet. An array of delicate
anemones wave their pulpy pink, white and purple tentacles in
other tanks.
Visitors often gasp in surprise when they enter the Coastal
Waters Gallery and see the central moon jellies exhibit. The
glass of the oval-shaped tank magnifies these pink, brainless
beauties as they gracefully palpitate up toward the top and
drift down again. Sea nettles, another jellyfish species,
look like aquatic, caramel-colored Art Nouveau lampshades,
and the fragile bell jellies resemble tiny transparent light
bulbs. For sheer creepiness, on the other hand, nothing
compares with the hagfish, coiled like a pale, bloated
sausage in its own tank. This repulsive creature covers dead
fish with a glaze of slime, swims inside, and proceeds to eat
its way out again. A close runner-up in the ugly department
is the huge, primitive-looking wolf-eel, which uses its
mouthful of buck teeth to crush shellfish.
The circular route of the galleries brings the visitor to
the long covered portico near the entrance, beyond which are
the outdoor exhibits--four acres of specially constructed
caves, cliffs and pools that distinguish this aquarium.
Both aboveground and through underwater viewing windows
visitors can watch sea lions, seals, sea otters, octopuses
and sea-birds. The otters, rescued as infants from the Exxon
Valdez oil spill in Alaska, are the only animals not
indigenous to Oregon. They look cuddly and playful, but
they're very territorial and aggressive. Cody, the 80-pound
male, has smashed the protective glass window on more than
one occasion.
Keiko, of course, is now the star attraction, housed in his
own state-of-the-art pool, 150 feet long, 75 feet wide and 25
feet deep. Although Keiko did not come to the aquarium to
perform, his trainers have devised a series of brain games
and high-energy remedial workouts--including breaches, barrel
rolls, bows and high-speed swims--to improve his physical
abilities and keep him mentally challenged. To the delight of
visitors, he also spends a great deal of time at the
underwater viewing windows, watching the people watch him.
The Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, which now owns the animal,
will make the final decision regarding his release. After
Life magazine brought Keiko's plight to the public's
attention in 1993 and children around the world bombarded the
Warner Brothers Studio with letters demanding to know why
``Free Willy'' was ailing and still in captivity the studio
hired Earth Island Institute, an environmental advocacy group
headquartered in San Francisco, to find a facility where the
whale--then a ton underweight, with a collapsed doral fin and
skin lesions--could be rehabilitated.
The institute set up the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, and
Warner Brothers donated $2 million of the $7.3 million needed
to complete his new pool. The rest of the money, for
relocation, veterinary care and operating expenses (such as
the 120,000 pounds of fresh-frozen fish Keiko will eat
every year), has come from private donations. The goal of
the foundation and the Oregon Coast Aquarium is to make
Keiko well enough to so that he can eventually be returned
to his family pod. Already there are signs that his health
is steadily improving, his veterinarian and others at the
aquarium say. He is eating nearly twice as much as he did
in Mexico City, and because of the change in water
chemistry--he now swims in cold fresh seawater instead of
warm chlorinated water--he's shed a layer of skin,
including patches of lesions near his tail flukes and
pectoral flippers.
Dr. Lanny Cornell, his veterinarian, recently stressed,
however, that while the initial news is good, ``it's a very
short time to make long-term predictions about his eventual
recovery.''
Other factors beside Keiko's health must also be taken into
consideration before he can be considered ready for life in
the wild. For one thing, each orca pod communicates with its
own ``dialect'' based on geographic location. Keiko can't be
released into the Pacific because he wouldn't be able to
communicate with the West Coast orcas. Willy had been
captured off the coast of Iceland; marine biologists must
find his original pod, and it's possible that they may no
longer be alive. In the meantime, from underwater viewing
windows, visitors now have a chance to see an orca explore an
environment that recreates a portion of his natural habitat.
Since Keiko's arrival, Newport, a small coastal town on the
north side of Yaquina Bay, has experienced a major tourist
boom.
From the aquarium it takes about five minutes to reach the
town via the Yaquina Bay Bridge, build in 1932 to 1936 as a
W.P.A. project.
South Jetty, the oldest on the West Coast, extends far out
into the Pacific, protecting the entrance into the bay. The
section of Newport that stretches along Highway 101 is little
more than an anonymous-looking strip mall, but a couple of
areas still preserve remnants of the old fishing community's
crusty past.
Nye Beach, a neighborhood that fronts on the Pacific Ocean
just west of Highway 101, is full of the weathered,
unpretentious cottages and beach shacks that until recently
characterized Newport and most Oregon coastal towns.
The Sylvia Beach Hotel, a former boardinghouse that is now
a cozy hotel, is perched above the broad, white-sand beach.
From Highway 101, the road curves down past a Coast Guard
station to Bay Boulevard, the main street where Newport's
beleaguered fishing industry is still headquartered. The Bay
Front, with its assortment of seafood restaurants, is a good
place to sample fresh local fish, oysters, shrimp, mussels,
crabs, geoducks (pronounced gooey-ducks) and clams. White
clam chowder, thick as pudding, is a staple in these parts.
More seafood to go can be found, uncooked, at the indoor
counters of the bayside canneries and fish-processing plants.
In seconds they can clean, crack and package a whole
Dungeness crab, one of the sweetest-tasting crustaceans in
existence. The Bay Front is the liveliest spot in Newport.
In addition to local craft, antiques, gift and candy shops,
there's Mariner Square, with a child-pleasing Ripley's
Believe It or Not. Dozens of colorful trawlers still dock at
Newport's marina, chugging out to fish for cod, flounder,
tuna, shrimp and oysters. But the recent, federally imposed
quotas on salmon and halibut has slowed the town's charter-
boat business.
Strolling along the narrow bayside sidewalks, visitors are
often surprised to hear the grunting gutteral barks of nearby
sea lions. There are so many male sea lions in Yaquina Bay
that residents call it the Bachelor Club. The females stay in
the sea with their young, but the hulking males like to
congregate on waterside docks.
The stretch of Highway 101 from Newport to Lincoln City, 22
miles north, is filled with a spectacular array of the
saltwater habitats recreated at the aquarium. One of the best
areas for viewing coastal wildlife is Yaquina Head, on the
northern outskirts of Newport. Here, in the water and on the
rocks below Oregon's oldest lighthouse, a gleaming white
tower activated in 1873, a raucous assortment of harbor
seals, sea lions, cormorants, murres, puffins and guilemots
make their home.
This is also a good spot for whale watching in the wild. If
the spring and early summer more than 18,000 gray whales pass
by on their seasonal migration from Alaska to Baja
California.
Once or twice a year orca whales, such as Keiko, also make
their way into Yaquina Bay. After gulping down whatever fish
is available--and often a sea lion or two they swim back to
the open sea. They bay itself is a thriving oceanic
ecocenter.
Not only does it support 200 species of birds, but it is so
clean that every day at high tide the Oregon Coast Aquarium
pumps two million gallons of water directly from the bay into
their tanks and another two million into Keiko's pool.

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