orca sink sailboat

Killer whales attack another sailboat off the coast of Spain

O rcas slammed into a sailboat off the coast of northwestern Spain on Sunday, damaging its rudder and prompting a complicated rescue operation that left one crew member seriously injured, officials said, marking the latest incident of the predators attacking a vessel in the region.

It wasn't known exactly how many orcas — also known as killer whales — were involved in the attack near O Roncudo along the rocky cliffs of the Spanish province of Galicia. Spain's maritime rescue service said two people on board the boat, called the Amidala, sent out a mayday at around 4 p.m. GMT to the dispatch center in Cape Finisterre, an area also marked by rocky shores and, at the time, rough seas.

The man and woman who crewed the Amidala haven't been identified by name, but the rescue service described them as Belgian nationals. Their boat sailed under the Finnish flag.

Another vessel with the Spanish maritime rescue service sailed for hours to the Amidala through adverse weather, which included waves nearly 10 feet high and winds of up to 40 miles per hour, the rescue service said. While arranging the towing operation that would allow the rescue vessel to slowly pull the sailboat to a port at Camariñas, the woman on board the Amidala seriously injured her hand and was airlifted back to land. The towing mission eventually ended with the sailboat docked just before 9:30 p.m.

Manuel Capeáns, who leads the rescue coordination center in Cape Finisterre, in a statement commended the Amidala's crew and everyone involved in the recovery for successfully completing the operation in such harsh conditions.

The incident on Sunday is just the latest in a string of accounts of orcas severely damaging sailboats in Spanish waters and across the surrounding region. In May, a sailing yacht sunk after killer whales attacked it in the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea between southern Spain and Morocco. The unknown number of orcas in that ordeal slammed into the vessel carrying two people and caused a water leak, according to Spain's maritime rescue center. Those crew members were rescued by a passing oil tanker.

Orca attacks on sailboats have apparently become more common in recent years. Reports of killer whale interactions with humans more than tripled over the last two years, according to a research group called GTOA, which documents such incidents in and around the Atlantic Iberian Peninsula.

The group said it has recorded hundreds of those interactions since 2020, although researchers noted that orcas' behavior in the Strait of Gibraltar and Bay of Biscay — another hotspot for killer whale interactions — dropped significantly between January and May of this year compared with the last three years' average figures over those same months.

Sailors have resorted to everything from throwing sand in the water to setting off fireworks to blasting thrash metal music in efforts to ward off the encroaching predators.

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Orcas ram sailboat off northwestern Spain, vessel towed to shore

MADRID (Reuters) - Orcas rammed a sailboat off the coast of northwestern Spain and damaged the vessel's rudder, prompting the maritime rescue service to tow the boat ashore, the service said on Monday.

The incident was the latest in a series of boat rammings by orca pods off the coasts of Spain and Portugal. Scientists have yet to reach a consensus on the reasons for this recent behaviour.

One of the sailboat's two crew members seriously injured her hand during the towing manoeuvre amid rough sea conditions and was evacuated by helicopter to hospital, the service said.

The boat, named Amidala, alerted the maritime rescue centre on the rock-bound Cape Finisterre peninsula on the coast of Galicia shortly before 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) on Sunday. The crew - a man and a woman, both Belgian nationals - reported damage to the ship's rudder after it was rammed by an unknown number of orcas.

Adverse weather, with winds of up to 35 knots (65 km/h) and waves up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) high, hampered the towing operation, the service said, which took more than five hours until reaching port.

In May, orcas sank a sailing yacht after ramming it on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Although known as killer whales, endangered orcas are part of the dolphin family. They can measure up to eight metres and weigh up to six tons as adults.

(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Inti Landauro and Ros Russell)

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Orcas Ram Sailboat off Northwestern Spain, Vessel Towed to Shore

A view shows a sailboat, as seen from a Spanish Coast Guard vessel, after orcas damaged the sailboat's rudder, prompting the maritime rescue service to tow the boat ashore, off the coast of Galicia, Spain, August 25, 2024. Spanish Coast Guard/Handout via REUTERS

The incident was the latest in a series of boat rammings by orca pods off the coasts of Spain and Portugal. Scientists have yet to reach a consensus on the reasons for this recent behaviour.

One of the sailboat's two crew members seriously injured her hand during the towing manoeuvre amid rough sea conditions and was evacuated by helicopter to hospital, the service said.

Adverse weather, with winds of up to 35 knots (65 km/h) and waves up to 3 metres (9.8 ft) high, hampered the towing operation, the service said, which took more than five hours until reaching port.

In May, orcas sank a sailing yacht after ramming it on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar.

Although known as killer whales, endangered orcas are part of the dolphin family. They can measure up to eight metres and weigh up to six tons as adults.

(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Inti Landauro and Ros Russell)

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Orcas sank three boats off the coast of Portugal, but don't call them 'killer' just yet

Three recent incidents of orcas seemingly attacking and sinking boats off the southwestern tip of Europe are drawing intense scrutiny over whether the animals deliberately swarmed the vessels and if they are learning the aggressive behavior from one another.

Encounters between orcas, or killer whales, and boats have been increasing since 2020, though no human injuries or deaths have been reported. In most cases, the whales have not sunk the boats.

The string of incidents since 2020 prompted one scientist in Portugal to say the attacks may indicate that the whales are intending to cause damage to sailing vessels. Others, however, are more skeptical, saying that while the behavior may be coordinated, it’s not necessarily coordinated aggression.

“I think it gets taken as aggression because it’s causing damage, but I don’t think we can say that the motivation is aggressive necessarily,” said Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington state.

At least 15 interactions between orcas and boats off the Iberian coast were reported in 2020, according to a study published last June in the journal Marine Mammal Science .

In November 2020, Portugal’s National Maritime Authority issued a statement alerting sailors about “curious behavior” among juvenile killer whales. The statement said the whales may be attracted to rudders and propellers and may try to approach boats.

The subsequent sinkings have caused more alarm.

The most recent encounter occurred on May 4 off the coast of Spain. Three orcas struck the rudder and side of a sailing yacht, causing it to eventually sink, as was reported earlier this month in a German publication called Yacht .

One theory put forward by Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, suggested that the aggression started from a female orca that was perhaps struck by a boat — a traumatic experience that caused her to start ramming sailing vessels. López Fernandez, who co-authored the June 2022 study published in Marine Mammal Science, told Live Science that other orcas may have then picked up that behavior through social learning, which whales have been known to exhibit.

But Shields said orcas have not historically been known to be aggressive toward humans, even when they were being hunted and placed in captivity.

“They’ve certainly had reason to engage in that kind of behavior,” she said. “There are places where they are shot at by fishermen, they’ve watched family members be taken from their groups into captivity in the ‘60s and ‘70s. And if something was going to motivate direct aggression, I would think something like that would have done it.”

Shields added that there are no clear instances of killer whales exhibiting what could be thought of as revenge behavior against humans.

She said the recent attacks on boats are likely more consistent with what’s known as “fad” behavior, which describes novel but temporary conduct from one whale that can be mimicked by others.

“It’s kind of a new behavior or game that one whale seems to come up with, and it seems to spread throughout the population — sometimes for a matter of weeks or months, or in some cases years — but then in a lot of cases it just goes away,” she said.

In the Pacific Northwest, for instance, Shields and her colleagues have observed fad behavior among Southern Resident killer whales who started carrying dead salmon around on their heads for a time before the behavior suddenly stopped.

Shields said the behavior of orcas off the Iberian coast may also be temporary.

“This feels like the same type of thing, where one whale played with a rudder and said: ‘Hey, this is a fun game. Do you want to try it?’ And it’s the current fad for that population of orcas,” she said.

While Shields did not dismiss the trauma response theory out of hand, she said it would be difficult to confirm without more direct evidence.

“We know their brains are wired to have really complex emotions, and so I think they could be capable of something like anger or revenge,” she said. “But again, it’s just not something that we’ve seen any examples of, and we’ve given them plenty of opportunities throughout the world to want to take revenge on us for various things. And they just choose not to.”

Denise Chow is a science and space reporter for NBC News.

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Killer whales sink $128k yacht in ‘terrifying’ 2-hour mediterranean sea attack: ‘like watching wolves hunt’.

Orcas relentlessly battered a yacht in a “terrifying” two-hour attack Wednesday that didn’t end until the $128,680 vessel sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Robert Powell, 59, and his crew were just 22 hours into their 10-day trip from Vilamoura, Portugal, to Greece when the pod set its sights on the £100,000 — or $128,680 — sailing boat.

“To me, they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,” Powell, who was meant to be celebrating his birthday aboard the boat, told SWNS.

“Their sole intention was to sink the boat, and that was it.”

Robert Powell's boat sinking roughly two miles off the coast of Spain.

The five orcas circled the 39-foot sailing boat and took turns smashing it to bits around 8 p.m. in a coordinated assault Powell compared to the carnage of wolves.

The IT company owner said he felt the first hit on the bottom of the boat, named the Bonhomme William, and assumed they had run over a rock.

“Whilst I was looking around the boat to see if I could see anything — I was doing about 5 to 6 knots — it got hit again,” Powell recalled.

“On the second hit, I looked over the back of the boat, and I could see the dark shape of a killer whale in the water.”

The pod of five first focused on the rudder, rendering the sailboat unable to steer after about 15 hits.

That’s when the orcas separated and each concentrated on their own section of the boat’s exterior, including the keel and stern.

“They were circling. It was like watching wolves hunt,” Powell said.

“They were taking it in turns to come in — sometimes two would come in at the same time and hit it. So obviously pretty terrifying.”

It took an hour and a half until the hull finally buckled beneath the whales’ pressure and split, causing water to gush into the main living area of the Bonhomme William.

Though they were just two miles off the coast of Spain — and the crew radioed for help as soon as the attack began — it took two hours before help arrived.

A Spanish salvage vessel fortunately helped them abandon the stricken ship, minutes before it sunk 130 feet below the Mediterranean’s surface.

Powell — who lost his birthday trip and his ritzy boat — said he tried everything from dropping firecrackers in the water and turning off the engine to deter the attack, but the pod was determined.

“It was a very long attack, and it was really the violence of the attack that surprised me,” he said.

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The former boat owner believes the pod — which included two juveniles — could be the same group responsible for terrorizing other skippers in European waters in recent years.

“I have a feeling that this group are boat sinkers — I think they knew what they were doing, I’m sure of it,” Powell said.

In May, a pack of killer whales sank a 50-foot yacht in Moroccan waters after repeatedly slamming into the vessel.

Orcas also interfered with a sailing race last year when a boat traveling from the Netherlands to Italy had a 15-minute showdown with the mammals. The crew was forced to drop its sails and make a ruckus to repel them.

Some studies suggest orcas are targeting boats for fun.

“It’s only a matter of time before someone shoots one of these killer whales,” Powell ominously warned.

“The fight between man and beast is going to get worse. Luckily none of us were in the water or got hurt.

“And it’s a lottery as to whether they hit you or not.”

Orcas have sunk another vessel off the European coast. Why won't they stop ramming boats?

By Audrey Courty

Topic: Whales

A group of three orcas repeatedly hit the rudder of a race boat in June 2023. ( Supplied: The Ocean Race )

The orcas are at it again: for the seventh time in four years, a pod of whales has sunk a boat after ramming it in Moroccan waters off the Strait of Gibraltar.

The 15 metre-long yacht Alborán Cognac, which carried two people, encountered the highly social apex predators at 9am local time on Sunday, Spain's maritime rescue service said.

The passengers reported feeling sudden blows to the hull and rudder before water started to seep into the sailboat. It is not known how many orcas were involved.

After alerting rescue services, a nearby oil tanker took them onboard and carried them to Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on Spain's southern coast.

Nothing could be done to save the sailboat, which drifted and eventually sank.

It's the latest incident in what has become a trend of hundreds of interactions between orcas and boats since the "disruptive behaviour" was first reported in the region in May 2020.

The origin of this new behaviour has baffled scientists, though the leading theory suggests this "social fad" began as a playful manifestation of the whales' curiosity.

Where have orcas interacted with boats?

The latest data from the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), an organisation that contributes to the animals' conservation and management, shows that there have been at least 673 interactions since 2020.

GTOA defines interactions as instances when orcas react to the presence of approaching boats with or without physical contact.

The map below shows the highest numbers of encounters from April to May 2024 took place off Spain's southern coast in the Strait of Gibraltar (red zones), with some lesser activity in surrounding areas (yellow zones).

The majority of reported encounters with orcas in April and May 2024 took place around the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco. ( Supplied: GTOA )

A 2022 peer-reviewed study published in the Marine Mammal Science journal found the orcas in these areas preferred interacting with sailboats — both monohulls (72 per cent) and catamarans (14 per cent) — with an average length of 12 metres.

A clear pattern emerged of orcas striking their rudders, while sometimes also scraping the hulls with their teeth. Such attacks often snapped the rudder, leaving the boat unable to navigate.

"The animals bumped, pushed and turned the boats," the authors of the report said.

Adding this week's encounter, there have been seven reported cases of orcas damaging a boat so badly that it has sunk, though the people onboard were rescued safely each time.

In June 2023, a run-in with the giant mammals in the Strait of Gibraltar forced the crew competing in The Ocean Race to drop its sails and raise a clatter in an attempt to scare the approaching orcas off.

No-one was injured, but Team JAJO skipper Jelmer van Beek said that it had been a "scary moment".

"Three orcas came straight at us and started hitting the rudders," he said.

"Impressive to see the orcas, beautiful animals, but also a dangerous moment for us as a team ... Luckily, after a few attacks, they went away."

After analysing 179 videos and photos of these types of interactions, which lasted on average 40 minutes, researchers concluded there was no reason to classify the events as intentionally hostile behaviour.

"The behaviour of orcas when interacting with boats is not identified as aggressive," they said.

"One of their main motivations has been identified as competition with boats for speed."

Still, the researchers of the study admitted they were not sure what triggered the novel behaviour in 2020.

"We are not yet certain what the origin of these interactions is, but it is still suspected that it could be a curious and playful behaviour," they wrote.

"[The behaviour] could be self-induced, or on the other hand it could be a behaviour induced by an aversive incident and therefore a precautionary behaviour."

Are the same orcas responsible for these incidents?

Out of around 49 orcas living in the Strait of Gibraltar, GTOA researchers found a total of 15 whales from at least three different communities participated in the unusual interactions with boats between 2020 and 2022.

Most of those that engaged with greater intensity were juveniles, though it's unclear if others have since joined the group.

These giant mammals, which belong to the dolphin family, can measure up to eight metres and weigh up to six tonnes as adults.

The director of the Orca Behaviour Institute, Monika Wieland Shields, has said there is no evidence to prove the theory these whales were seeking vengeance against humans for a past trauma.

"While I'm sure it feels like an attack for the people on board, for the whales themselves, it really looks more like play behaviour," she said.

"There's something intriguing or entertaining to them about this [boat rudder] mechanism and they're just showing a lot of curiosity about it."

Ms Wieland said it's likely this new behaviour spread through the population as a kind of "social fad".

"Orcas are highly intelligent, very social animals, and with that comes a tendency to be curious about and explore your environment," she said.

"One thing that we see are these kind of fad behaviours that will appear in a certain population.

"One whale discovers something, they find it entertaining or interesting, or fun — it's some type of game. And then they will teach that to other members of their family group."

Are orcas dangerous to humans?

While orcas have earned their fearsome reputation for preying on other marine animals, there is no record of them killing humans in the wild.

In captivity, orcas have killed four people since the 1990s, though it's unclear whether the deaths were accidental or deliberate attempts to cause harm.

Ms Shields said she was worried the recent interactions between orcas and boats would skew people's perceptions of these mammals.

"I am concerned that people are going to react with fear, potentially injure or shoot at some of these whales," Ms Shields said.

"We really need to educate boaters about the best things that they can do to make themselves less attractive to the whales and the best case scenario would be the whales lose interest in this and move onto something less destructive."

Spain's Transport Ministry advises that whenever boats observe any changes in the behaviour of orcas — such as in their direction or speed — they should leave the area as soon as possible and avoid further disturbance to the animals.

The ministry also states every interaction between a ship and an orca must be reported to authorities.

Orcas sink another boat in Europe after a nearly hour-long attack

For the fourth time in two years, a group of unusually brazen orcas in southwestern Europe have sunk a sailing boat after relentlessly attacking it for almost an hour on Halloween.

A pod of orcas has attacked and sunk another boat in southwestern Europe after relentlessly bombarding the vessel and its crew for almost an hour on Halloween. It is the fourth time that orcas from this region's population have sunk a vessel in the last two years.

On Oct. 31, the Grazie Mamma — a mid-size sailing yacht owned by Polish cruise company Morskie Mile — was attacked by an unknown number of orcas for around 45 minutes off the coast of Morocco in the Strait of Gibraltar, Morskie Mile representatives wrote in a Facebook post translated from Polish.

The orcas ( Orcinus orca ), also known as killer whales , repeatedly hit the yacht's rudder causing major damage and allowing water into the vessel's hull. Despite receiving aid from the Moroccan Navy and being towed toward safety, the boat eventually sank as it entered the port of Tanger-Med in Morocco. All passengers were safely evacuated to rescue boats before the ship sank.

The unusual attack is the latest example of one of many unnerving new orca behaviors that have highlighted the striking intelligence of these deadly predators.

Related: 11 ways orcas show their terrifying intelligence

A juvenile orca swims away from the yacht with a large piece of fiberglass from the rudder in its mouth.

Since 2020, orcas have been regularly harassing boats in the Strait of Gibraltar — a narrow strait between Spain and Morocco that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea — and the surrounding waters off the coast of the Iberian peninsula.

These nautical raids were likely started by a pod including White Gladis, a female orca who may have been traumatized by a past boat collision . The unusual behavior then spread among other individuals who seem to be becoming more daring and efficient with their attack s .

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So far, at least three other boats have been sunk in the area , with the most recent incident occurring in May 2023 and the previous two both occurring in 2022. And in June, a yacht had its rudder ripped clean off with "ruthless efficiency" in a 15-minute attack.

Researchers suspect that orcas are learning to attack boats from one another. Witnesses have also reported seeing orcas "teach" other individuals how to maximize the damage they cause, Live Science previously reported.

Related: How often do orcas attack humans?

So far, only one other boat has been attacked outside of the Strait of Gibraltar and its surrounding waters: A yacht in Scotland, more than 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away, which was rammed by a lone individual . However, it is impossible to directly link this attack to the other orcas.

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Boat attacks are not the only unusual learned orca behavior that scientists have taken note of in recent years.

Since 2017, a pair of orcas known as Port and Starboard have killed dozens of great white sharks in South Africa by ripping out their livers. And on Oct. 17 this year, this behavior was also documented in Australia for the first time , hinting it may also be spreading.

Harry is a U.K.-based senior staff writer at Live Science. He studied marine biology at the University of Exeter before training to become a journalist. He covers a wide range of topics including space exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal behavior, evolution and paleontology. His feature on the upcoming solar maximum was shortlisted in the "top scoop" category at the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) Awards for Excellence in 2023.

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Orcas Sink Fourth Boat Off Iberia, Unnerving Sailors

Orcas caused enough damage to sink a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar last week. A small pod has been slamming boats in recent years, worrying skippers charting routes closer to shore.

By Isabella Kwai

The yacht Grazie Mamma II carried its crew along the coastlines and archipelagos of the Mediterranean. Its last adventure was off the coast of Morocco last week, when it encountered a pod of orcas.

The marine animals slammed the yacht’s rudder for 45 minutes, causing major damage and a leak, according to Morskie Mile , the boat’s Polish operators. The crew escaped, and rescuers and the Moroccan Navy tried to tow the yacht to safety, but it sank near the port of Tanger Med, the operator said on its website.

The account of the sinking is adding to the worries of many sailors along the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where marine biologists are studying a puzzling phenomenon: Orcas are jostling and ramming boats in interactions that have disrupted dozens of voyages and caused at least four boats in the past two years to sink.

The largest of the dolphin family, orcas are playful apex predators that hunt sharks, whales and other prey but are generally amiable to humans in the wild . The orcas hunting in the Strait of Gibraltar are considered to be endangered , and researchers have noticed an upsurge of unusual behavior since 2020: A small group of the marine animals have been battering boats in the busy routes around Portugal, Spain and Morocco.

While most interactions occur in the waters of southwestern Europe and North Africa, an orca also reportedly rammed a yacht some 2,000 miles north off the coast of Scotland, according to The Guardian.

“Orcas are complex, intelligent, highly social,” Erich Hoyt, a research fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation and author of “Orca: The Whale Called Killer,” said. “We’re still at the early stages of trying to understand this behavior.”

Researchers have pushed back at the idea that orcas are attacking vessels. Instead, they theorize that the rudders of boats have become a plaything for curious young orcas and that the behavior has become a learned fad spreading through the population. Another hypothesis, according to biologists who published a study on the population last June, is that the ramming is an “adverse behavior” because of a bad experience between an orca and a boat — though researchers tend to favor the first.

It is unclear what will stop the ramming, whether it’s playful or otherwise, a point that has left anxious skippers traveling these parts sharing advice in Facebook groups dedicated to tracking such interactions .

“It’s been an interesting summer hiding in shallow waters,” said Greg Blackburn, a skipper based in Gibraltar. Orcas slammed into a boat he was commanding in May and chewed at the rudder, he said, though the vessel was able to return to shore.

The encounter left an impression: On a recent trip to Barcelona, Mr. Blackburn had to pass through a patch where orcas had been sighted the week before. “I genuinely felt sick for about three hours,” he said, “just watching the horizon constantly for a fin to pop up.”

Conservationists, maritime rescue groups and yacht clubs are partnering to navigate the challenge of preserving an endangered population and helping sailors avoid calamity. The Cruising Association, a club supporting sailors, has recommended safety protocols for orca encounters, such as disconnecting the boat’s autopilot and staying quiet. Skippers have offered one another anecdotal advice to deter attacks, including throwing sand into the water and banging loudly on the boat.

Before leaving shore, seagoers can also consult digital platforms that now track reported orca sightings and interactions in the region. This can help them avoid the animals, or chart a route closer to shore, said Bruno Díaz López, a biologist and the director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute based in Galicia, Spain.

“We suggested the boats stay in shallow waters,” he said, adding that they had noticed more boats changing their journeys. “Maybe the trip takes longer, yes. But it is worth it.”

Mr. Blackburn, the skipper, said he had heard of people resorting to throwing firecrackers into the sea to try to scare the animals away, adding that the boats served as people’s homes on the ocean. “At the end of the day, if you’re protecting your home what are you going to do?”

But the ocean is the orcas’ home, and conservationists say scaring the animals is not a solution.

“It is not about winning a battle, because this is not a war,” Mr. López said. “We need to be respectful.”

Isabella Kwai is a breaking news reporter in the London bureau. She joined The Times in 2017 as part of the Australia bureau. More about Isabella Kwai

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Orcas sank a third boat. Scientists think these 'brutal' attacks may be trauma-driven.

Orcas keep attacking sailboats off the coasts of Spain and Morocco.
Earlier this month two attacks were reported where one ended up sinking the boat.
Scientists can't explain the attacks but one leading theory points to a single, traumatized orca.

Orcas are targeting sailboats near the Iberian Peninsula, and nobody knows why.

Most of the attacks involve multiple orcas ramming the boat but it remains afloat. In several cases, however, the animals have managed to sink entire boats.

The third case of orcas sinking a boat happened earlier this month off the Iberian coast, LiveScience reported .

"The attacks were brutal"

Skipper Werner Schaufelberger was sailing at night off the coast of Spain when three orcas started to attack his boat.

"At first I thought we had hit something. But then I quickly realized that it was orcas attacking the ship," Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht .

"The attacks were brutal. There were two smaller and one larger orca. The two little ones shook the rudder while the big one kept running and then rammed the ship from the side with full force," he added.

The Spanish coast guard rescued Schaufelberger and the rest of the crew and towed the boat to port, where it sank right before reaching port.

It's important to note that the vast majority of interactions with orcas don't end with a sunk boat. These attacks near the Iberian Peninsula may be due to a single, traumatized orca that has taught this behavior to other, fellow orcas, LiveScience reported.

"The orcas are doing this on purpose, of course, we don't know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day," biologist Alfredo López Fernandez at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Atlantic Orca Working Group, told LiveScience.

Other orca attacks

Schaufenlberger wasn't the only victim this month. On May 2, Greg Blackburn thought his boat was hitting rough waves when the thumps began as he sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar near Tangier, Morocco, according to 9News .

Orca attacks are becoming more common

A collaboration of researchers has recorded more than 200 reports of "interactions," where orcas approach or touch a vessel, along Portugal and Spain's Iberian Peninsula since 2020.

Insider previously reported in 2020 about a series of aggressive actions by orcas along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. At the time, scientists had different theories: The killer whales could be acting out of curiosity, mischief, territoriality, or trauma.

López Fernandez suspects that one, traumatized female orca may be to blame. Her name is White Gladis and, according to LiveScience, she may have experienced a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing. The incident changed something in Gladis.

"That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat," López Fernandez told LiveScience.

Whatever the reason for the growing number of attacks — whether it's Gladis or something else — if you encounter an orca in the wild there are some guidelines for what to do:

Keep a low profile on deck. Don't excite the orcas.
Contact authorities on VHF 16, or by phone on 112

If the orcas ram your boat, secure yourself to something because the last thing you should ever do is enter the water when orcas are nearby.

Correction: May 9, 2023 — An earlier version of this story misstated the nature of the 200 orca incidents reported since 2020, as well as the origin of that statistic. Those reports were of interactions between orcas and boats, not necessarily attacks. And that number comes from a collaboration of scientists collecting reports, not from local media outlets.

This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published on August 13, 2022.

Watch: Orcas are under threat from man-made noise pollution. These scientists are fighting to protect them.

Main content

Orcas sink boat with two passengers on board in Strait of Gibraltar

Orcas attacked and sank a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar, prompting Spanish officials to issue a warning to sailors in case they ever encounter one of the giant sea mammals.

On Sunday, orcas sank a 10-meter-long boat with two passengers on board. The passengers, who were able to notify authorities in time, were rescued after receiving help from a nearby oil tanker and Moroccan authorities, states Salvamento Marítimo , Spain’s maritime rescue service, in a press release.

The boat sank near Cape Spartel, a promontory in Morocco near the entrance of the Strait of Gibraltar, a channel that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean between Spain and Africa.

The country's Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility prepared a list of things to do in case boats or yachts meet a pack of killer whales at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

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How to handle an orca encounter

According to the agency , people who encounter orcas while on a vessel should do the following:

Don't go near the side of the boat. Move to a space in the middle of the vessel where they're protected from sudden movements.
If the whales try interacting with the boat, don't stop the boat or turn off the motor. Move towards the coast or shallower waters.
Report the event to officials, even if the boat doesn't take damage.

Why are whales attacking marine vessels?

For the past four years, hundreds of incidents have occurred between orcas and boats or yachts.

And interactions still remain a mystery, Alfredo López, a University of Santiago biologist, previously told USA TODAY.

However, the whales' reasoning for the attacks could be as innocent as playful curiosity or as nefarious as targeting the vessels they perceive as competition for food.

Graphics: Why are orcas attacking boats and sometimes sinking them?

Contributing: Ramon Padilla , USA TODAY

Julia is a trending reporter for USA TODAY. She has covered various topics, from local businesses and government in her hometown, Miami, to tech and pop culture. You can follow her on X, formerly Twitter , Instagram and TikTok : @juliamariegz

Orcas Sink 50-Foot Yacht Off the Coast of Morocco

The vessel’s two passengers were evacuated onto an oil tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar. The incident marks the fifth vessel the mammals have sunk in recent years

Daily Correspondent

a pod of four orcas swims, their backs, heads and fins visible from above the surface of the water

The boat-ramming orcas are back in action: Two people had to be rescued from a sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar after the black-and-white marine mammals damaged the vessel so badly it later sank, reporters Reuters ’ David Latona.

The incident occurred around 9 a.m. local time Sunday, some 14 miles north of Cape Spartel in northern Morocco. Passengers aboard the 50-foot Alboran Cognac felt blows to the yacht’s hull and saw that the rudder had been damaged. As water began leaking onto the ship, they contacted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Tarifa, Spain, which directed them to prepare for an emergency rescue.

About an hour later, a nearby oil tanker picked up the two crew members, who were customers of Spain-based Alboran Charter , which owns the yacht, reports the Washington Post ’s Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff.

The boat took on more water and sank soon after. It’s not clear how many orcas targeted the vessel.

The sinking of the Alboran Cognac is the latest in a string of incidents involving orcas and ships in the Strait of Gibraltar. The highly intelligent, social marine mammals made headlines last spring , when they sank a Swiss yacht called Champagne off the coast of Spain. In November, they brought down another ship , a Polish sailing yacht called the Grazie Mamma .

But the animals’ unusual behavior goes back even further: Since 2020, mariners have reported 700 interactions between orcas and ships in the Strait of Gibraltar, per Reuters. The Alboran Cognac is the fifth vessel orcas have sunk in the last three years, reports Live Science ’s Harry Baker.

Most of the incidents have been recorded in the Strait of Gibraltar, a waterway linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The strait, which is bordered by Morocco to the south and by Spain to the north, is home to a distinct—and critically endangered —subpopulation of fewer than 50 orcas .

However, last June, orcas also rammed into a ship in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway, roughly 2,000 miles away from the Strait of Gibraltar. Scientists weren’t quite sure what to make of that incident, which raised the possibility that the destructive behavior was spreading to different groups of orcas.

In the meantime, authorities are urging mariners in the Strait of Gibraltar to exercise caution this summer. Spain’s Maritime Safety and Rescue Society recommends avoiding a large area between the Gulf of Cádiz and the Strait of Gibraltar; the agency also suggests that mariners sail as close to the coast as possible, especially from May to August, when orcas are more likely to be in the region.

If sailors do encounter orcas, the agency recommends they keep the vessel moving and head toward shallower waters. People onboard the ship should remain in the middle of the vessel and not approach the sides, where they may be at risk of falling overboard.

The agency also asked mariners to notify authorities of any orca encounters and, if possible, to take photographs of the creatures for identification.

Scientists remain puzzled by the orcas’ destructive behavior. A leading hypothesis is that a female nicknamed “White Gladis” started ramming into ships after having some sort of traumatic run-in with a vessel; she may also have been pregnant when she first started targeting ships. Since orcas are social creatures, other members of White Gladis’ group may have simply followed her lead and mimicked her actions.

“The idea of revenge is a great story, but there’s no evidence for it,” said Lori Marino , a neuroscientist and the founder and president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, to BBC Newsbeat ’s Shaun Dacosta last year.

Another possibility is that the orcas are curious about ships, or maybe, they’re just having fun.

“They’re probably socializing, yucking it up with each other about their adventures without realizing the terror they’re creating in their moments of joy,” said Andrew Trites , a marine mammal researcher at the University of British Columbia in Canada, to Business Insider ’s Erin Heger last summer.

From January to May 2024, the interactions recorded by the GT Orcas APP and @crewingservice were a total of 26. It is a 65% lower than the 2023 records and 40% less than the average. Interactions have been reduced since the wide distribution of the orcas. — Orca Ibérica GTOA (@Orca_Iberica) May 14, 2024

Orcas have also been known to temporarily exhibit other unusual behaviors, like placing dead salmon atop their heads. The boat-ramming behavior may be another, similarly short-lived fad that the Strait of Gibraltar orcas will eventually move on from.

And they may already be doing just that: Between January and May 2024, the number of reported interactions with orcas was 65 percent lower than during the same period in 2023 and 40 percent lower than the average for those months across 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group .

Whatever the orcas’ motivations, scientists have urged onlookers to avoid assigning human emotions to the animals’ behaviors. Though the boat-ramming killer whales have given rise to internet memes and merchandise that suggests they’re plotting an “ orca uprising ,” researchers argue that the marine mammals are not acting with malicious intent.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.

Group of orcas attack and sink vessels off Iberian Peninsula

Stephanie Sy Stephanie Sy

Courtney Norris Courtney Norris

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A small group of orcas is causing a lot of damage to boats off the Iberian Peninsula. Last month, killer whales rammed a boat continuously for over an hour, managing to remove the rudder. In another incident, three orcas repeatedly struck a yacht causing it to sink. Stephanie Sy reports.

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Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.

Geoff Bennett:

A small group of orcas is causing a lot of damage to boats off the Iberian Peninsula, raising questions about why the orcas are doing it.

Stephanie Sy looked into it and has this report.

Stephanie Sy:

In the middle of the night last October, Artur Napoleao was sailing miles off the coast of Portugal to deliver a boat to a client. As a professional skipper and sail instructor, it's a journey he's taken many times before.

Artur Napoleao, Professional Skipper and Sail Instructor: At 4:00 a.m., it was my turn to go to sleep. So, I went down. I start taking my nap, and, 30 minutes later, boom.

He ran up to the deck to find the boat surrounded by a pod of orcas.

Artur Napoleao:

They mess around for five minutes, and then they went to another boat more far away from me, like one, two miles.

But the pod returned, not once, but three times, the visits spanning over several hours, well after sunrise.

I got really scared, until I realized, until I saw the orcas and see their moments and how gentle they were when I stopped the boat.

In the past three years, hundreds of boat and orca interactions have been reported off the coasts of Portugal, Spain, and Morocco.

According to the Spanish research group GTOA, in 2022, there were 207 reported interactions in the Strait of Gibraltar alone. The strait is a narrow waterway that separates Spain and Morocco. And the meetings are not always gentle.

Just last month, killer whales surrounding a boat sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar were met with loud noises, an attempt by the crew to scare them off. The pod rammed the boat continuously for over an hour, managing to remove the rudder. With seawater gushing into the boat, the experienced crew of four issued a mayday call, and were eventually towed to shore unharmed.

In another recent instance off the coast of Spain, three orcas repeatedly struck a yacht, causing it to sink entirely after Spanish Coast Guards rescued the crew on board.

Rui Alves, Creator, Orcas.pt:

We are having one incident every day, on average, OK? There are days we have two or three.

To better track these events, Rui Alves started this Web site last year to log orca encounters. It connects a network of sailors who share geographic locations of sightings and attacks along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. This map shows incidents reported just this month.

So, for me, it was an idea. If you spread the word about something that happens in an area, people will avoid that area. Maybe they will keep the boat and say, I don't sail today because there are many orcas at that point. I will sail tomorrow, or maybe I will go in another direction.

Orcas living near the Iberian Peninsula are a distinct subpopulation and a critically endangered one.

But why these orcas are repeatedly damaging boats is something experts are trying to understand. One theory making the rounds? Revenge. Some scientists believe an orca named White Gladis suffered a traumatic injury from a boat, and may be teaching other orcas how to attack similar vessels.

But Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute, says that kind of activity would be uncharacteristic of the animal she studies. Play is a more likely explanation, she says.

Monika Wieland Shields, President, Orca Behavior Institute:

It's just not something that we have seen, for whatever reason. They're the top predator in the ocean. They're capable of attacking and killing all kinds of species that are around them.

But they have never targeted that talent or that predator-like behavior towards humans.

Despite the killer whale nickname, orcas are the largest species in the dolphin family, and no humans have yet to report major injuries from the boat confrontations.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Stephanie Sy.

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Stephanie Sy is a PBS News Hour correspondent and serves as anchor of PBS News Hour West. Throughout her career, she served in anchor and correspondent capacities for ABC News, Al Jazeera America, CBSN, CNN International, and PBS News Hour Weekend. Prior to joining NewsHour, she was with Yahoo News where she anchored coverage of the 2018 Midterm Elections and reported from Donald Trump’s victory party on Election Day 2016.

Courtney Norris is the deputy senior producer of national affairs for the NewsHour. She can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @courtneyknorris

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Orcas sank a yacht off Spain — the latest in a slew of such 'attacks' in recent years

Scott Neuman

Killer whales are pictured during a storm in the fjord of Skjervoy in 2021 off the coast of northern Norway. Researchers say orcas are stepping up "attacks" on yachts along Europe's Iberian coast. Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Killer whales are pictured during a storm in the fjord of Skjervoy in 2021 off the coast of northern Norway. Researchers say orcas are stepping up "attacks" on yachts along Europe's Iberian coast.

The crew of a sinking yacht was rescued off the coast of Spain this week after a pod of orcas apparently rammed the vessel – the latest "attack" by the marine mammals in the area that has left scientists stumped, several boats at the bottom of the ocean and scores more damaged.

Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast. Scientists don't know why

The encounter on Sunday between an unknown number of orcas, also known as "killer whales," and the 49-foot sailing yacht Alboran Cognac occurred on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow passage linking the Atlantic and Mediterranean where the majority of such incidents have occurred in recent years.

The Alboran Cognac's crew said they felt sudden blows on the hull and that the boat began taking on water. They were rescued by a nearby oil tanker, but the sailboat, left to drift, later went down.

The sinking brings the number of vessels sunk – mostly sailing yachts – to at least five since 2020. Hundreds of less serious encounters resulting in broken rudders and other damage, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR late last year.

As NPR first reported in 2022, many scientists who study orca behavior believe these incidents — in which often one or more of the marine mammals knock off large chunks of a sailboat's rudder — are not meant as attacks, but merely represent playful behavior.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Catamaran Guru(@catamaranguru)

Some marine scientists have characterized these encounters over the years as a "fad," implying that the animals will eventually lose interest and return to more typical behavior.

The study co-authored by López Fernandez, for example, indicated two years ago that orcas were stepping up the frequency of their interactions with sailing vessels in and around the Strait of Gibraltar.

Some researchers think it's merely playful behavior

One hypothesis put forward by Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, a research group based in Spain, is that orcas like the feel of the water jet produced by a boat's propeller.

A picture taken on May 31, 2023, shows the rudder of a vessel damaged by killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar and taken for repairs at the Pecci Shipyards in Barbate, near Cadiz, southern Spain. Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," de Stephanis told NPR in 2022. "So, when they encounter a sailboat that isn't running its engine, they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder."

In one encounter last year, Werner Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht that his vessel, Champagne, was approached by "two smaller and one larger orca" off Gibraltar.

"The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side," he said.

The Spanish coast guard rescued Schaufelberger and his crew, towing Champagne to the Spanish port of Barbate, but the vessel sank before reaching safety.

A worker cleans Champagne, a vessel that sank after an attack by orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar and was taken for repairs at the Pecci Shipyards in Barbate, near Cadiz, southern Spain, on May 31, 2023. Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

The encounters could be a response to past trauma

López Fernandez believes that a female known as White Gladis, who leads the group of around 40 animals, may have had a traumatizing encounter with a boat or a fishing net. In an act of revenge, she is teaching her pod-mates how to carry out attacks with her encouragement, he believes.

It's an intriguing possibility, Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute , told NPR last year.

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," she said. "I don't think we can completely rule it out."

However, Shields said she remained skeptical of the "revenge" hypothesis. She said that despite humans having "given a lot of opportunities for orcas to respond to us in an aggressive manner," there are no other examples of them doing so.

Deborah Giles, the science and research director at Wild Orca, a conservation group based in Washington state, was also cautious about the hypothesis when NPR spoke to her last year. She pointed out that killer whale populations in waters off Washington "were highly targeted" in the past as a source for aquariums. She said seal bombs – small charges that fishers throw into the water in an effort to scare sea lions away from their nets – were dropped in their path while helicopters and boats herded them into coves.

"The pod never attacked boats after that," she said.

clock This article was published more than 1 year ago

Why orcas keep sinking boats

Scientists have some theories why killer whales have seriously damaged boats about a dozen times this year off the coast of Spain and Portugal

In the early morning Thursday, killer whales smashed into a sailboat off the southern coast of Spain, puncturing its hull and damaging its rudder. Spanish authorities raced to save the sinking vessel, according to Reuters , but it was in such disrepair it had to be towed ashore.

It wasn’t the first attack by an orca, or killer whale, off the coast of Spain and Portugal this year. And it may not be the last time one chews a rudder or crashes into a hull. Normally, killer whales aren’t considered dangerous to humans. But pods of killer whales have done serious damage to boats in the region about a dozen times already this year, according to the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or GTOA, a research group studying the region’s killer whales, part of a rise in attacks first observed in 2020.

Stories and videos of the attacks widely shared on social media have turned the orca into a meme. After the marine mammals struck some fancy yachts, some observers are calling the strikes concentrated around the Strait of Gibraltar, where the whales congregate in the spring and summer, an act of anti-capitalist solidarity from “orca comrades” and “orca saboteurs.” For others, the series of strikes is eerily similar to a scene in James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” movie , “The Way of the Water.”

So what is happening? The scientists studying the whales themselves aren’t entirely sure, either. But they have two leading ideas:

Theory No. 1: The orcas are playing around

Closely related to bottlenose dolphins, orcas are highly intelligent and curious marine mammals. Using a series of underwater pulses and whistles, the whales communicate with such sophistication that pods form their own dialects and parents teach their young hunting methods that are passed along for generations.

After learning a new behavior, juvenile orcas often keep repeating it ad nauseam. (In that way, they are a lot like human youngsters.) Playing around is just a part of learning how to be an apex predator.

That matches the pattern of attacks whale scientists have witnessed this year, according to Alfredo López Fernandez, a researcher at the University of Aveiro in Portugal working with GTOA.

In this case, the behavior is “self-induced,” López Fernandez said, and not caused directly by some outside (i.e., human) provocation. “Which means that they invent something new and repeat it,” he added.

But there’s another potential motivation that sounds straight out of “Moby Dick.”

Theory No. 2: The orcas want vengeance

Orcas off the Iberian Coast like to follow fishing vessels to snag bluefin tuna before fishermen can reel them in, putting the aquatic mammals at risk of being struck or entangled. Scientists have seen killer whales in those waters with fishing lines hanging from their bodies.

So it is possible, López Fernandez said, an orca had a bad run-in with a boat in the past, and is now teaching other killer whales how to attack vessels as well. The team suspects a female adult named White Gladis may be the one doing so.

López Fernandez emphasized we don’t have enough information to know the real reason behind the attacks yet. Even assuming the second theory is true, “we don’t know what that triggering stimulus could have been,” he said.

With only 39 orcas counted in 2011, the Iberian orca subpopulation is considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The impact that entanglements and boat strikes are having on all sorts of whales and dolphins around the world underscores that humans are a bigger threat to them than they are to us.

“All this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are at the origin of this behavior,” López Fernandez said.

Watch CBS News

Killer whales sink yacht after 45-minute attack, Polish tour company says

By Emily Mae Czachor

November 6, 2023 / 9:58 AM EST / CBS News

A group of orcas managed to sink a yacht off the coast of Morocco last week, after its 45-minute attack on the vessel caused irreparable damage, a Polish tour company said.

The incident happened Tuesday, Oct. 31, as a crew with the boat touring group sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar. The narrow waterway bridges the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, which separates the southern tip of Europe from northern Africa.

A pod of orcas, colloquially called killer whales, approached the yacht and "hit the steering fin for 45 minutes, causing major damage and leakage," the tour agency Morskie Mile, which is based in Warsaw and operated the yacht, wrote on Facebook in a translated post.

Although its captain and crew were assisted by a search-and-rescue team as well as the Moroccan Navy, the yacht could not be salvaged. It sank near the entrance to the port of Tanger-Med, a major complex of ports some 30 miles northeast of Tangier along the Strait of Gibraltar. None of the crew members were harmed, said the Polish tour agency, adding that those on board the sunken yacht were already safe and in Spain by the time their Facebook post went live.

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us. Longtime friendships formed on board," wrote Morskie Mile. The company said it was involved in other upcoming cruises in the Canary Islands and would work to make sure those boat trips went ahead as planned.

Last week's incident in the Strait of Gibraltar was not the first of its kind. Reported attacks by killer whales that seem to be trying deliberately to capsize boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal have more than tripled over the last two years, according to data released in the spring by the research group GTOA, which studies orcas around Gibraltar.

"Nobody knows why this is happening," Andrew W. Trites, professor and director of Marine Mammal Research at the University of British Columbia, told CBS News in May. "My idea, or what anyone would give you, is informed speculation. It is a total mystery, unprecedented."

GTOA recorded 52 maritime interactions with orcas between the Strait of Gibraltar and Galicia, a coastal province in northwestern Spain, between July and November 2020. The incidents picked up in the years that followed, with 197 interactions recorded in 2021 and 207 recorded in 2022, GTOA said, noting that the interactions mainly affected sailboats.

Then, in June of this year, one of two sailing teams involved in an international race around the world reported a frightening confrontation involving multiple orcas as they traveled through the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Gibraltar. The teams, which were competing in The Ocean Race, said the orcas did not damage their boats or harm crews, but recalled the sea creatures pushing up against and, in one instance, ramming into one of the boats. The orcas also nudged and bit the rudders, one crew member said.

Caitlin O'Kane and Kerry Breen contributed to this report.

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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Orcas sink another sailboat as a bewildering wave of attacks continues

Orcas have been damaging or sinking boats in the Strait of Gibraltar for the past few years and we don’t know why

By Corryn Wetzel

7 November 2023

Orca and fishing boats in the Straits of Gibraltar, Europe

A orca and fishing boats in the Strait of Gibraltar

Lisa Collins/robertharding/Alamy

Earlier this year, there were several reports of orcas severely damaging sailing boats in the Strait of Gibraltar – and they are at it again.

On 31 October, a pod of orcas surrounded a sailboat off the coast of Morocco. The whales nipped at the ship’s rudder and rammed the hull for about 45 minutes, according to a social media post by the tour company operating the boat. The damaged yacht tried to make it back to shore, but ultimately sank near the entrance of a port.

Where is this happening?

In the Strait of Gibraltar – a strip of sea separating the southern tip of Europe from northern Africa. A pod of orcas there has rammed boats and ripped off the rudders, sinking four sailboats and damaging dozens more. The orcas began a wave of activity this May, and videos documenting the encounters have been sweeping the internet since.

At least a dozen whales are taking part in the activity, sparking a flurry of speculation over whether the orcas (Orcinus orca) may be teaching each other how to bring down boats and organising into an army. But non-combative reasons could be behind the apparent trend.

How long has this been going on?

The rise in whale encounters over the past year has captured public attention, but altercations with these orcas began earlier than this. Scientists, fishers and locals began reporting unusual encounters in the Strait of Gibraltar in May 2020 . According to the Atlantic Orca Working Group , which tracks this pod, there were 207 reported interactions in 2022. While many interactions were relatively harmless, at least four ships have sunk this year, with no reported injuries to people – all of whom were rescued before their boats went under.

Over the past few years, these orca-boat encounters in the Mediterranean seem to have escalated during the month of May, which is when the pod’s favourite food, bluefin tuna, is migrating through the area. That makes this latest confrontation distinct from the others.

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What exactly are the orcas doing to boats?

In most cases, the orcas take turns quickly approaching the stern of the boat, with an apparent interest in the boat’s rudders, which they pierce or snap with their teeth. The whales have also been seen pressing into sailboats with their head and with the flanks of their body, occasionally tearing holes in the hull.

Sometimes, they cause no damage to the ships, instead riding in the boat’s wake. Notably, this group of whales seems less interested in large or motorised vessels. “They’re hyper-focused on sailboats,” says Deborah Giles at the University of Washington in Seattle.

How many orcas are involved?

The encounters, including the latest one last week, usually involve only a handful of whales from a pod of around 39. Images and video of the events are helping researchers track which members of the pod are most involved and which have yet to exhibit the behaviour. Currently, around 15 orcas are partaking in the boat-ramming activity. “It’s a behaviour that has probably spread from one individual,” says Andrew Trites at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Can orcas learn from one another? Will this behaviour spread?

Orcas are a social species capable of learning from their podmates, so it is possible the behaviour is a trend that is catching on. But this doesn’t mean that the whales are intentionally teaching their podmates to target boats, which would require communicating a motive and recruiting others to the cause. Instead, it may just look fun or interesting to the orcas.

This North Atlantic subpopulation, like many orca pods, is distinct from others in diet , culture , dialect and genetics. Members of this pod don’t mingle with other orcas, so it is unlikely this behaviour will spread to other populations, though it could spread further within this pod.

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Why are orcas doing this? Is it revenge?

Online rumours have swirled about an orca called White Gladis, who was supposedly traumatised in an encounter with a boat. This is speculation based on healed injuries on her fins, but it isn’t clear that those injuries were caused by an encounter with a boat. Orcas rake each other with their teeth, which could offer another explanation for the scars. Most experts agree there isn’t any evidence that White Gladis is training other whales to attack, and there is no clear motive for podmates to risk personal injury for her vengeance. It is also unknown if White Gladis was involved in this latest clash.

“Nobody knows why this is happening,” says Trites. “All the reports coming in have been from non-scientists, non-specialists – people that are terrified.” He says orcas are a highly intelligent species capable of self-recognition, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are capable of planning and enacting revenge.

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What else could be behind the increase in orca encounters?

Both Trites and Giles think it is more likely that the orcas are just having fun or seeking an admittedly terrifying back scratch. “These whales are very tactile,” says Giles. “They interact with things in their environment, including each other.” A pod of whales in British Columbia has been seen vigorously rubbing against rocky beaches, for example.

Wild orcas have never been documented hunting or eating humans, so it is unlikely this relates to wanting a meal.

Until researchers know what is motivating the encounters, it will be challenging to abate them. If the orcas see the activity as a game, for example, fleeing may elicit a more aggressive response. “This is something that we humans need to figure out and not place the blame on the whales,” says Giles.

endangered species /
marine biology /
whales and dolphins /

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