Killing Keiko (14 page)

I recall a conversation I had many times in just such debriefings, this time with
Steve Sinelli and Karen McRea. We were sitting in the bay pen research shack having
just finished a training session with Keiko.

Steve reminded me of one of Santa’s elves. He was not categorically short, but close.
Balding and with a close cut and well-groomed beard, his black hair gave no signs
of graying and lent to his elfin appearance. Steve had a youthful energy that contrasted
slightly with his age. More often than not, he wore loose fitting water-resistant
nylon and fleece lined pants and a black fleece vest over his white turtleneck shirt.
It was Steve’s black and white uniform attire. He was confident, and like me, could
be argumentative.

Steve sat in front of the computer but turned away from the screen, instead facing
Karen and me. He had just finished writing up the session. Steve had worked with Keiko
in that particular training session, rehearsing a behavior called a “fluke presentation.”
When given the signal or S
^d
for the behavior, Keiko would turn on his back at the surface and present his tail
flukes to Steve who sat on a water-level floating platform. In this ventral position,
blood samples could be easily drawn from the larger veins that run through the flukes.
Typically, Keiko would remain in this position for three to four minutes, and sometimes
as long as ten minutes depending on what was required. In past research on his breath-holding
capacity, Keiko had held this position (and his breathing) for over thirteen minutes.
This and many other husbandry behaviors were a normal and important part of Keiko’s
life. He knew them and performed them well. I described what I had seen during Steve’s
session and suggested a few adjustments.

“Tell me why you were using your whistle bridge during the fluke presentation behavior?”
I asked.

I had learned to sit during these types of discussions. At six–foot-two it was easy
to inadvertently bully a shorter person, and I didn’t want to start off on the wrong
foot. No matter, Steve was one of the older team members and was pretty comfortable
in his own skin. Karen, not so much.

“We use a short whistle to let him know he’s doing good and then a longer whistle
to end the behavior when he’s completed it.” Steve replied instructionally.

I’d seen this
superstitious
use of the whistle bridge before and debunked it just as many times. It was a critically
important foundation in establishing how behavior is conditioned. As importantly,
everything in Keiko’s world had to be refined, even the most seemingly innocuous training
habits.

Karen didn’t say much, but I could tell she was listening intently. With a degree
in psychology, she knew the language of behavior but had never used it in an applied
setting. Nonetheless, I found it more productive to speak in layman’s terms, avoiding
any confusion. “Okay, think of the whistle or bridge as a ‘secondary’ reinforcement.
When Keiko first heard a whistle bridge it didn’t mean anything to him. But over time,
someone taught him that the whistle meant ‘good’ by following it
consistently
and
immediately
with various rewards.”

They accepted this, but kept a poker face as if to say,
Duh, tell me something I didn’t already know
. This much was cliché and often part of educational spiels at various training facilities.
I was being ultra-elementary on purpose; I didn’t know at what point along the line
we would cross into new territory.

I continued, “The whistle
bridges
(I emphasized the word) the time between when Keiko completes the behavior correctly
and receives his reward from you.” There was more. “It also takes a snapshot picture
in his mind at the
precise
moment that he has committed the correct response.” I needed to drive the latter
point home or they wouldn’t get it.

“Imagine that Keiko is learning to do a jump in a specific place in the pool that
you choose. How do you teach him to jump in that precise spot every time?” I wanted
them to engage in the discussion.

Steve replied with ease. He had seen this and was not fooled. “You use a target pole
and slap in the position where you want him to exit the water.”

“Yes, but when you are fading that target, teaching him to ‘remember’ the spot without
the help of the target, when do you
bridge
the correct response?”

Steve tested the water, “When he comes up in that spot?”

It was as much a question as a response. Steve knew I had a trick answer up my sleeve.
He smiled …we were having fun with the discussion. Karen sat in the chair under the
west window, happy that she was only indirectly involved. In my peripheral vision
I could see that she was processing the question with a pensive look on her face.

“Not exactly … you want to use the bridge at the precise moment that he turns up from
the bottom toward that spot. That’s the moment you want to grab his
thought process
and say YES! That’s it—you’ve got it!” I found myself standing to emphasize the importance
of this precision tool, using my hands as if one were Keiko sweeping up to jump, and
the other was the surface of the water. “That’s when you need the whistle to be sharp
and powerful—grabbing his attention.”

But Steve was unsure of where this was going. “Okay, but what’s that got to do with
bridging his fluke presentation while he’s doing it correctly?” he asked.

“Everything!” (I loved this stuff.) Continuing, I explained, “When you use the bridge
and
do not
follow it immediately with a reinforcement or change, a consequence, some form of
positive consequence—you are dulling a precision instrument—the whistle bridge. You
are in fact desensitizing that bridge, reducing its value. After a while it is no
longer a precision instrument but a blunt tool that has lost effectiveness. It no
longer means anything when you most need it to.”

Steve was not convinced. “That’s why we use a long whistle during the behavior and
a short whistle as the precision part.”

“The long whistle doesn’t mean anything to Keiko. It has no consequence, no change
that gives it value. In effect, through generalization, you are only draining the
value of the bridge as a whole—whether that’s a long or short whistle or a catchy
melody.”

“Don’t you think he knows it though, like we’re saying
good boy—keep going
?” he asked.

“No I don’t. By allowing him to continue the behavior you are accomplishing the same
thing. You don’t need the midterm whistle. Alternatively, you can rub his flukes,
providing reinforcement while he’s holding the behavior, and achieve the intended
result. But you need to think of that bridge as a vital learning tool, and protect
its value by making sure that it has consistently positive and immediate consequences.
The whistle bridge has a very specific application; it’s not a tool to be thrown around
lightly and for convenience.”

We would have many and varied conversations of a similar nature, discussing everything
from the whistle bridge to transferring learning and reinforcement history from one
environment to another and beyond. Although the prospect of teaching behavioral modification
was thoroughly enjoyable, added to the vast needs demanded by Keiko and the long road
ahead, it was exhausting. We needed “top gun” trainers that knew this stuff intuitively.

The first rotation team and I were just beginning to find our groove when it was time
to alternate the entire team. The second rotation would be sashaying in and taking
up residence in the hostel, the bay pen, and taking the reins on Keiko’s daily needs.
The only holdover between the two rotations … me. This left no other option; I would
have to pull out the most effective organizational secret weapon ever conceived by
man—the “staff meeting” (in case there’s any doubt, that was indeed heavy sarcasm).

As chance would have it, Jeff’s alter ego, Peter Noah, was more of an organizational
freak than I. Peter held an informal group meeting his second day, setting the record
for 100 percent more meetings than Jeff had tallied in two months. And just like that,
it was a completely different atmosphere in our quaint but peculiar hostel.

E-mail: May 9, 1999

Peter and I hit it off immediately. We spent his first full day back in Heimaey sequestered
on the bay pen—just the two of us. Peter was now the acting on-site project manager.
He wanted to know who this guy was running things with Keiko. It just so happened
that Peter was a very analytical, left-brain thinker. In my
past, I had been accused of being a sneaky-deep-down “Vulcan,” favoring logic. We
both enjoyed a good clean whiteboard.

Throughout the day we discussed Keiko, the behavioral science behind our proposal
and how it could be effectively implemented against the many logistical and weather
challenges in Vestmannaeyjar. The conversation covered every identifiable hurdle,
including the limitations of the Behavior Team, some of the existing gaps in management
structure and the oddball staff rotations.

At that time, I would guess Peter to have been in his early forties. Taller than average,
he carried a large frame and were it not for his somewhat academic nature, would have
been an imposing figure. As it were, Peter was an easygoing guy. He liked to talk
things through a
d nauseam
. The staff liked Peter, but tired of his systematic management style and preferred
Jeff if given the choice. It didn’t take but the first forty-eight hours with Peter
and the incoming rotation to figure out that this new group was the motley crew, the
leftovers after Jeff had handpicked his preferred A-team.

A massive overhaul to the staff rotation and organizational structure became a priority.
Peter had already recognized that a complete shifting of personnel without any overlap
was detrimental to maintaining any consistency with Keiko, or any other operational
detail for that matter. We conspired to imagine what could be done and what changes
would need to eventually take place. The time I spent with Peter, although short in
the grand scheme of my time on the project, was integral to getting a foothold on
some of the more stubborn operational adjustments that were desperately needed. A
kindred spirit, Peter encouraged me to run with the organizational solutions I was
just beginning to bring to the table. With a figurative slap on the back, he gave
me the confidence and an open door to push on.

Among the first series of staff changes, I sought to establish a clear structure,
a recipe from which the staff could easily implement new daily requirements. This
of course involved yet another
white board. But before even a daily plan could be erected, some nomenclature was
required. We defined each approach to Keiko’s conditioning by session types. Sometimes
our intent was simply to create exertion, exercise (much of the time early on). Other
times the goal might be teaching Keiko something new or simply encouraging him to
interact with his environment. More advanced objectives engaged the use of differential
reinforcement techniques encompassing all hours of the available clock. Husbandry,
or any form of preventative medical evaluation, formed the final category of overt
activity from Keiko’s trainers.

As we carefully mapped the plan each day, we also meticulously broke down every measurable
behavior. The staff was unaccustomed to telling Keiko “no.” Almost anything he did
before had been accepted, no matter how lackluster the response or how low the jump.
At times, even a complete lack of response to their wanting call was shrugged off
as if it had no bearing on Keiko’s future. Mother Nature would never be so accommodating.
I was determined to ensure that every demand on Keiko’s energy and responsiveness
was met with absolute consistency, no matter who, no matter when. Inconsistency among
his trainers would only teach Keiko to discriminate, firstly with the trainer, but
later in the context of his environment. So vital was this simple prospect that it
kept me glued to the bay pen day or night in supervision of all applied conditioning.

Apart from direct interactions, we began to see the negative space—the time and space
between training sessions. In this undiscovered realm, the Behavior Team had to learn
to recognize opportunity. They had to open their eyes to any behavior, movement or
activity Keiko might engage in that resembled a wild animal. At first it was difficult.
Keiko was so accustomed to sitting idle and floating at the surface, we struggled
to find any small chance to encourage an active whale. But slight modification to
Keiko’s diet, increased level of exercise during sessions and our unwavering consistency
between trainers finally began to take tangible form. Applied together, these shrewd
but simple changes bit by bit began to awaken the animal within.