"Free Willy" was a movie.

How misguided is the movement to place SeaWorld's killer whales in pens?  Pretty misguided and most likely detrimental to the animals.  "Free Willy" was a movie, but there was a real whale involved named Keiko.  Science, animal behavior and conservation should be the guides.

In a paper that reviewed the attempts to release 'Keiko' published in Marine Mammal Science the authors concluded:   

"The release of Keiko demonstrated that release of long-term captive animals is especially challenging and while we as humans might find it appealing to free a long-term captive animal, the survival and well being of the animal may be severely impacted in doing so." (Simon, Hanson, Murrey, Tougaard, and Ugarte. 2009).

As stated above, SeaWorld displays 26 whales in the USA of which only 5 where were obtained by wild capture.  The last was caught in Iceland in 1983 over 30 years ago.  None of these animals are suitable for release and as the experiment with 'Keiko' reveals any attempts are likely to badly fail; a position supported by Jean-Michel Cousteau who organisation Ocean Futures was directly involved in the 'Keiko' release project.

Sea pens for marine mammals sounds like a humane compromise.  If you want to put the whales in jeopardy.

Perhaps one of the most irksome comments that come from the animal-rights community and self-styled marine mammals expert is that of the use of sea pens.  

Of course, it is not the case that marine mammals have not been successfully house in sea pens, as many facilities of this nature exist worldwide.  Nevertheless, the misguided view that these facilities are promoted as the panacea to alleged welfare problems in facilities with closed life-support systems (LSS) is erroneous.  In addition, and as is so often the case in these matters, this subject is more complicated than it appears.

Therefore, it can be seen that once again those protesting against the care of marine mammals in human care and demanding their release to coastal sea-pens are at misguided and have not fully considered the animal welfare implications of such schemes.