It is a puzzlement

I’m sure someone can explain this all to me, but why would the US Humane Society and the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation, among others, pay to have the deceased Keiko, the Killer Whale … buried?

Keiko, the killer whale star of the “Free Willy” movies, was buried Monday in a snow-bound pasture during the deep darkness of Nordic winter in a ceremony kept secret from the public.
The roughly six-ton whale died Friday in a Norwegian bay where his team was trying to reintroduce him to the wild. His trainers said the likely cause of death was pneumonia.
Richards said the burial in a pasture just yards from where Keiko, about 26, died was done in secret to avoid a media circus. Despite the whale’s size, the burial went smoothly, Richards said. Machines dug a hole near the waterline, under cover of darkness, and then slid Keiko slowly a few yards across the snow into his grave, he said.
“It was beautiful. He went to the grave quietly, quickly and peacefully, just like he died,” said Richards. Only seven people — including his team and the machine operator — were present.

Well, yeah — because he was dead. I mean, I wouldn’t expect him to put up a struggle.

But, honestly, doesn’t that represent a measure of artifice and anthropomorphism that animal rights organizations would ordinarily oppose? Doesn’t that break the Circle of Life? Or, even more metaphysically, doesn’t that mean that he’ll never be free again?

The grave site, a lush and grassy field during the summer, was covered with snow and barely visible by daylight Monday.

Both of which are, of course, an orca’s natural habitat. Doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that the people who worked so hard to send him back to the wild removed him from it for his final resting place?

Normally, Norwegian fisheries authorities would order the remains of a large sea mammal towed to sea and sunk in deep water.

I mean, I suppose it might have been a bit embarrassing if the rotting remains of Keiko washed up on the beach outside Oslo. But …

“We wanted to let him be at peace,” said Dane Richards, one of his caretakers. “He’s free now and in the wild.”

Well, no, now he’s landlocked and beached for eternity. That’s just swell.

(via BoingBoing)