Earlier this month, three killer whales attacked a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar, causing extensive damage to the ship and sinking shortly thereafter.
The 5.4 incident was the third killer whale (killer whale) has sunk ships off the coasts of Portugal and Spain in the past three years. A subpopulation of killer whales in the region began harassing boats in 2020, much of it by chewing on the rudder. Nearly 20 percent of these attacks caused enough damage to incapacitate ships, said Alfredo Lopez, a killer whale researcher at the Atlantic Killer Whale Working Group (GTOA), which monitors the Iberian killer whale population. I’m here. “This is an unusual behavior detected only in this part of the world,” he says.
Researchers don’t know why killer whales target personal watercraft. According to Lopez, he has two hypotheses. One is that killer whales invented new fads, which subpopulations of the dolphin family are known to do. Like humans, killer whale trends are often led by young people, Lopez said. Alternatively, the aggression could be a reaction to a past bad boat-related experience.
The first known incident occurred in May 2020 in the Strait of Gibraltar, where boat traffic was heavy. Since then, GTOA has documented 505 cases of killer whales reacting to boats. Only a few cases involved physical contact, Lopez said. A study published in June 2022 found that marine mammal science, he and his colleagues have cataloged 49 killer whale boat contacts in 2020 alone. The majority of attacks were against sailboats or catamarans, with a minority involving fishing vessels and motorboats. The average length of the ships she was 12 meters (39 feet). For comparison, a full-grown killer whale can grow to 9.2 meters (30 feet) long.
The researchers found that killer whales preferentially attack the rudder of boats and sometimes scrape the hull with their teeth. Such attacks often cut the rudder and render the boat unable to navigate. In three cases the animals caused enough damage to sink the boat. In July 2022, a yacht with five people on board sank. In November 2022, a sailing ship carrying four people sank.And finally, in this month’s attack, a Swiss sailing yacht Champagne Forced to abandon, the ship sank while being towed to shore. In both cases her crew was safely rescued.
In 2020, researchers observed nine different killer whales attacking boats. It is unknown if others have since joined. Attacks he tended to come from two separate groups. One is her group of three boys, occasionally joined by a fourth, and a mixed-age group consisting of an adult woman named White Gladys, her two young children, and her two children. of her sisters. White Gladys was the only adult involved in the original incident, so researchers speculate that she may have become entangled in her fishing line at some point, making her less compatible with her boat. . Lopez said other adult orcas in the area have suffered injuries from boat crashes and entanglements. “All of this must make us think about the fact that human activity, even indirectly, is at the root of this behavior,” he says.
However, since everyone involved was rescued safely, Deborah Giles suggested that killer whales have no malice towards humans. Giles, director of scientific research at Wild Orca, a Washington state-based conservation nonprofit, said humans harassed killer whales ruthlessly off the coast of Washington and Oregon in the 1960s and 1970s, killing young killer whales. He points out that it was captured and taken away to be displayed at the Marine Exhibition Hall. park. “These animals have all been caught once, and most whales have been caught more than once. I saw it never seen again,” says Giles. “Yet these whales never attacked ships and never attacked humans.”
While it’s possible that killer whales around the Iberian Peninsula are reacting to negative boating experiences, Giles says it’s pure speculation to think the killer whales are the motives. The behavior appears to be learned, she said, but to the human mind it could be just a fad for no real reason or reason. Famously, some members of the Southern Resident Orca, which cruises Washington’s Puget Sound each summer and fall, spent the summer of 1987 wearing dead salmon on their heads. There was no clear reason why salmon hats became prevalent among killer whales, but the behavior spread and persisted for several months before fading away again. “We don’t know what’s going on with this population,” Giles said of the Iberian killer whale.
A 2022 study found that Iberian killer whale attacks typically last less than 30 minutes, but can last up to two hours. in the case of, Champagne, Crew members told German magazine that two juvenile killer whales were chasing the rudder while an adult killer whale repeatedly rammed the ship. yacht. The attack lasted 90 minutes.
The Iberian killer whale subpopulation is considered endangered, with just 39 individuals in 2011, the last time a full census was conducted. A 2014 study found that this subpopulation tracks the migration of its primary prey, the Atlantic bluefin tuna. Human contact with fishing, military operations, and recreational boating. Maritime authorities advise boaters in the area to slow down and stay away from the killer whales, Lopez said, but there is no foolproof way to avoid them. He and his colleagues are concerned that boat attacks may recur and bite killer whales because sailors rant or because the attacks are dangerous to the animals themselves. “They are at great risk of injury,” Lopez said.
