Stephen Claussen, Keiko's trainer, dies in plane crash 5/08

[Luna SHALL Be Free@Sea!!]

Stephen Claussen, Keiko's trainer, dies in N.J. plane crash

Marine research - The Seattle man studied how wind turbines affect mammals

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
KATY MULDOON
The Oregonian Staff

Stephen Matthew Claussen, who trained, fed and cared for Keiko during the movie-star orca's years in Oregon and Iceland, died Saturday in a plane crash.

Claussen, 41, of Seattle and two other passengers were aboard a small Cessna when it crashed about 12:30 or 1 p.m. in dense woods in Ocean County, N.J. The plane's owner and pilot, 60-year-old John Ambroult of Eastham, Mass., also died in the crash. Passengers, Jacalyn Toth Brown, 28, of Pemberton, N.J., and Juan Carlos Salinas, 43, of Mexico City, were seriously injured and being treated Tuesday in an Atlantic City hospital.

Claussen, Brown and Salinas were gathering data to assess what effects offshore wind turbines might have on marine mammals and birds. They conducted surveys worldwide for Texas-based Geo-Marine Inc.

The plane apparently crashed shortly after takeoff, but the wreckage was not discovered until a cell phone call from Salinas led rescuers to the crash site about 4:30 p.m., according to a spokesman for the National Transportation and Safety Board.

The youngest of five children, Claussen was born Oct. 3, 1966. A chef, he operated a Seattle restaurant for about five years and volunteered with Tacoma's Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium before his passion for animals overtook his cooking career. He joined the effort to give Keiko, the killer whale star of the movie "Free Willy," a shot at a better life in 1996.

That year, animal lovers and philanthropists orchestrated the elaborate move that transported the whale from a Mexico City amusement park to a custom-built pool at Newport's Oregon Coast Aquarium.

Claussen rented a house in South Beach and went to work with the Free Willy-Keiko Foundation crew of whale keepers.

In a 2003 interview with The Oregonian, he recalled a night dive in Keiko's aquarium pool. The Newport night was so clear, Claussen remembered, that from underwater he could see a sky sparkling with stars. The 21-foot-long, 10,000-pound whale joined him near the pool floor and for 90 minutes, he gave Keiko a stem-to-stern rubdown.

"It was magical," Claussen recalled, "because he was such a gentle creature and he genuinely seemed to enjoy the interaction with people."

Claussen was aboard the U.S. Air Force C-17 that transported Keiko from Newport to the whale's native Iceland in 1998. That plane's landing gear was damaged when it touched down in Vestmannaeyjar -- Iceland's Westmann Islands -- but no one was injured.

He and much of the crew moved to the rugged archipelago, where they fed, trained and exercised the tame whale through brisk Icelandic summers and fierce winters. They hoped Keiko would grow independent enough to join a wild whale pod, though he never did.

"He loved that animal and he loved that project," said Jeff Foster, former head of the Keiko crew.

Claussen left the project after six years. He and other former keepers formed a Seattle company, Marine Research Consultants, and he continued with marine mammal work.

His colleague Greg Schorr recalled Tuesday that in 2002, Claussen helped rescue an orphaned killer whale and reunite her with her pod in British Columbia. And after Hurricane Katrina, Claussen helped with dolphin rescue efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

His aerial and shipboard marine mammal surveys took him throughout the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Last fall, he surveyed bowhead whales in the arctic, and this summer, he had planned to study right whales in Alaska.

Claussen's mother, brother and three sisters survive him.

A memorial gathering is planned May 31 in Seattle. Details will be posted at www.stephenclaussenmemorial.com.

Newhouse News Service contributed to this report. Katy Muldoon: 503-221-8526; katymuldoon@news.oregonian.com


©AP
** FILE ** In this Monday, Feb. 9, 1998 file photograph, Keiko, the famous killer whale, gets his teeth checked from trainer Stephen Claussen in the tank at Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Ore. Claussen, 41, of Seattle, the mammal trainer who prepared Keiko the whale in the movie "Free Willy," was one of of two men killed in a plane crash Saturday, May 17, 2008, in Ocean County, N.J. Plane owner John Ambroult of Eastham, Massachusetts, was also killed. Jacalyn Toth Brown of Pemberton, N.J.


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