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

Scott Neuman

An orca pod seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021. Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservación Information and Research hide caption

An orca pod seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Ester Kristine Storkson was asleep on her father's small yacht earlier this month, sailing off the coast of France, when she was violently awakened.

Scrambling on deck, she spotted several orcas, or killer whales, surrounding them. The steering wheel swung wildly. At one point, the 37-foot sailboat was pushed through 180 degrees, heading it in the opposite direction.

They were "ramming the boat," Storkson says. "They [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack."

"I told my dad, 'I'm not thinking clearly, so you need to think for me,'" the 27-year-old Norwegian medical student says. "Thankfully, he is a very calm and centered person, and made me feel safe by gently talking about the situation."

After about 15 minutes, the orcas broke off, leaving father and daughter to assess the damage. They stuck a GoPro camera in the water, she says, and could see that "approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent."

A screen grab from a video of the encounter between a pod of orcas and the Storkson boat. Ester Kristine Storkson hide caption

A screen grab from a video of the encounter between a pod of orcas and the Storkson boat.

For any vessel, losing steering at sea is a serious matter and can be dangerous in adverse conditions and some sailboats have had to be towed into port after orcas destroyed their rudders. Fortunately, the Storksons had enough of their rudder left to limp into Brest, on the French coast, for repairs. But the incident temporarily derailed their plan to reach Madeira, off northwest Africa, part of an ambitious plan to sail around the world.

There is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild. Still, two boats were reportedly sunk by orcas off the coast of Portugal last month, in the worst such encounter since authorities have tracked them.

The incident involving the Storksons is an outlier, says Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, a cetacean research group based in Spain. It was farther north -- nowhere near the Strait of Gibraltar, nor the coast of Portugal or Spain, where other such reports have originated.

That is a conundrum. Up to now, scientists have assumed that only a few animals are involved in these encounters and that they are all from the same pod, de Stephanis says.

"I really don't understand what happened there," he acknowledges. "It's too far away. I mean, I don't think that [the orcas] would go up there for a couple of days and then come back."

These encounters — most scientists shun the word "attack" — have been getting the attention of sailors and scientists alike in the past two years, as their frequency seems to be increasing. Sailing magazines and websites have written about the phenomenon, noting that orcas seem to be especially attracted to a boat's rudder. A Facebook group , with more than 13,000 members, has sprung up to trade personal reports of boat-orca encounters and speculation on avoidance tactics. And, of course, there are no shortage of dramatic videos posted to YouTube.

Scientists don't know the reason, but they have some ideas

Scientists hypothesize that orcas like the water pressure produced by a boat's propeller. "What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," de Stephanis says. 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."

Even so, that doesn't entirely explain an experience Martin Evans had last June when he was helping to deliver a sailboat from Ramsgate, England, to Greece.

About 25 miles off the coast of Spain, "just shy of entering the Strait of Gibraltar," Evans and his crew mates were under sail, but they were also running the boat's engine with the propeller being used to boost their speed.

As Evans was on watch, the steering wheel began moving so violently that he couldn't hold on, he says.

"I was like, 'Jesus, what's this?'" he recalls. "It was like a bus was moving it. ... I look to the side, and all of a sudden I could just see that familiar white and black of the killer whale."

Evans noticed "chunks of the rudder on the surface."

Jared Towers, the director of Bay Cetology, a research organization in British Columbia, says "there's something about moving parts ... that seem to stimulate them."

"Perhaps that's why they're focused on the rudders," he says.

The population of orcas along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts is small and de Stephanis believes that the damage to boats is being done by just a few juvenile males.

If so, they may simply outgrow the behavior, de Stephanis says. As the young males get older, they will need to help the pod hunt for food and will have less time for playing with sailboats.

"This is a game," he speculates. "When they ... have their own adult life, it will probably stop."

An orca calf, photographed in the Strait of Gibraltar, in 2021. Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservación Information and Research hide caption

An orca calf, photographed in the Strait of Gibraltar, in 2021.

Towers says such "games" tend to go in and out of fashion in orca society. For example, right now in a population he studies in the Pacific, "we have juvenile males who ... often interact with prawn and crab traps," he says. "That's just been a fad for a few years."

Back in the 1990s, for some orcas in the Pacific, something else was in vogue. "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers says. "We just don't see that anymore."

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Orcas Sank 3 Boats in Southern Europe in the Last Year, Scientists Say

A small group of orcas is ramming into sailboats in waters off the Iberian Peninsula. Researchers say they do not know what is driving the unusual behavior toward boats.

By Isabella Kwai

Hours into a journey to Portugal from Morocco, the crew of a 46-foot sailing cruiser noticed something was wrong with the rudder. Then, someone shouted what they saw slicing through the choppy waves: “Orcas! Orcas!”

The orcas kept pace with the boat, slamming into its side and chewing at the rudder, according to its skipper, a photographer onboard and video of the encounter. For about an hour, the crew signaled their predicament to the Spanish Coast Guard and tried to stay calm.

“There was nothing we could do,” said Stephen Bidwell, the photographer, who was two days into a weeklong sailing course with his partner when the ramming began. “You’re in awe at the same time as you are nervous.”

The skipper, Gregory Blackburn, said he wrestled for control of the boat as the orcas banged into it, interfering with the rudder. “It’s a reminder of where we are in the food chain and the natural world,” he said.

Eventually the boat managed to motor back to Tangier, Morocco. But marine scientists took note of the episode, on May 2, and said it continued a puzzling pattern of behavior by a small group of orcas off the Iberian Peninsula’s western coast. The orcas, according to the researchers, have caused three boats to sink since last summer and disrupted the trips of dozens of others.

Wild orcas, although apex predators that hunt sharks and whales , are not generally considered dangerous to humans . The animals, the largest of the dolphin family , have been known to touch, bump and follow boats, but ramming them is unusual, marine scientists say. A small group of orcas, numbering about 15, started to batter boats around Spain in 2020, with researchers calling the behavior uncommon and its motivations unclear.

“We know that it is a complex behavior that has nothing to do with aggression,” said Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal who worked on a study published last June on the subject. The orcas show no sign of wanting to hurt humans, he said.

In most sightings, the orcas do not change their behavior or make physical contact, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group , which began tracking direct interactions — as well as sightings — in 2020.

Since an initial surge that year, orcas have been documented approaching or reacting to vessels about 500 times, causing physical damage about 20 percent of the time, in the high-trafficked seas near Morocco, Portugal and Spain, the group said.

The orcas off the Iberian coast are considered an endangered population : The group arrives in waters near the Strait of Gibraltar every spring from waters deeper and farther north up the coast to hunt tuna. But while they are a usual sight, scientists do not know how to stop the small group’s recent behavior, which has left sailors worried about safety and ship damage, and which has caught the attention of the Spanish and the Portuguese authorities.

“Every week there is an incident,” said Bruno Díaz López, a biologist and the director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute who was not involved in last year’s research. “We really don’t know the reason.”

In the most recent example, orcas battered a sailboat off the coast of Spain, causing it to sink in the early hours of May 5. The Spanish authorities quickly arrived, and the four people onboard were rescued “in good humor,” said Christoph Winterhalter, the president of the Swiss company that was operating the boat, Hoz Hochseezentrum International.

The University of Aveiro biologist, Dr. López Fernandez, said that it was possible that the three boats sank over the past year because they were vulnerable to leaks or not equipped to endure the damage. (“The condition of the boat was very good,” Mr. Winterhalter said of the one his company had chartered.)

The small group of orcas, including only two adults, were responsible for a majority of the interactions with boats, which number some 200 a year and range from the North African coast to France, according to Dr. López Fernandez.

Researchers do not know what is behind the behavior. Some have speculated that it is an “aversive behavior” that could have started after an incident between an animal and a boat, like an entanglement in fishing line, or an invented behavior from young orcas that is being repeated.

Those remain only theories, though Dr. López Fernandez said it appeared that the behavior might be passing between local animals.

“We know that orcas share their culture with their young and with their peers,” he said, adding that they learned from imitation. But because the behavior has been observed only in this particular subpopulation of orcas, he said that it was unlikely to pass onto distinct orca groups that populate waters around the world.

Given the lack of evidence and the presence of young orcas in the group, other scientists expressed skepticism that the behavior stemmed from a boat incident and believed that the animals may simply be playing.

“They’re getting some sort of reward or thrill from it,” said Erich Hoyt, an orca expert and research fellow with Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a wildlife charity. “Play is part of being a predator.”

Scientists say that aside from having sailors avoid the area, they do not know how to stop orcas from bothering sailboats, which tend to be quieter than most vessels and therefore more attractive to the animals.

It has also left conservationists worried about how humans will treat the orca population, especially as sailors in the region express growing frustration with the animals.

“I hope that they stop doing it as quickly as they started, because it’s actually imposing a risk on themselves,” said Hanne Strager, a marine biologist and the author of “ The Killer Whale Journals ,” adding that it was putting pressure on an already vulnerable species.

Mr. Bidwell, the photographer, said the episode would not stop him and his partner from booking another sailing trip in June, though perhaps with some changes. “Maybe we don’t go that same route,” he said.

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’ latest boat attack claims yacht sailing in Strait of Gibraltar

A yacht sank after it was attacked by a pod of orcas for 45 minutes, a sailing company has said, marking the latest assault on a boat by the sea mammals this year.

Polish tour operator Morskie Mile — which means "sea miles" — said in a Facebook post that its yacht Grazie Mamma II was attacked while sailing the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco on Oct. 31.

The whales attacked the boat's rudder, the company said, causing major damage and a leak. Despite an attempt by the captain to take the boat to the nearest port, and a rescue attempt that involved the Moroccan Navy, the yacht sank near the entrance to the port of Tanger Med, about an hour's drive east of the city of Tangiers.

The boat's crew were unharmed, the company said in a statement that NBC News translated from Polish. The same statement was posted to the company's website by company owner Lech Lewandowski.

"For us, this yacht was everything that was great about sea sailing," he said.

"Long-term friendships were formed onboard. We sailed this yacht through the most beautiful places in Europe and the Atlantic archipelagos, trained numerous yacht helmsmen, discovered the beautiful and unknown, tasted Mediterranean specialties and sailed, sailed, sailed," Lewandowski continued.

The company said it was planning to honor forthcoming cruise bookings by using "friends' yachts." Future trips will take in the Baltic Sea, Norway, Italy and the Canary Islands, according to the company's website. A single leg of a voyage can cost 1,800 Polish zloty ($432).

In May, it emerged that orcas were responsible for attacking and sinking three boats in southern Europe. Encounters between orcas and humans have been increasing since 2020, researchers say , but no human deaths have been reported.

The increased orca-boat activity has led to a slew of internet memes this year, with some claiming they were joining the "orca wars" on the side of the orcas.

In September, a Russian boat on a round-the-world trip was sunk after a prolonged attack by tiny cookiecutter sharks.

I cover early morning U.S. breaking news, everything from severe weather to crime. I'm based in London and have worked for American news outlets since 2013.

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.

Why are killer whale attacks on the rise? These scientists set sail to find out

A BOARD A BOAT IN THE STRAIT OF GIBRALTAR — From the surface, the azure waters seem calm and inviting in this narrow patch where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Mediterranean Sea .

Spain’s arid coast looms in one direction; the tip of Africa in another, less than 10 miles away. From time to time, schools of small fish breach the water in unison, as if in symphony.

But with binoculars trained on the horizon, the boat’s captain is on the lookout for something potentially far more unsettling: orcas, also known as killer whales, who in recent years have taken to slamming boats with alarming regularity.

Over the last five years, roughly 700 orca run-ins have been recorded, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group-GTOA, a partnership of Spanish and Portuguese scientists that monitors the Iberian killer whale population. At least a half-dozen yachts, fishing vessels and sailboats have sunk.

For the Spanish fisherman who take to the Strait of Gibraltar nightly hunting for tuna, marlin and swordfish, the likelihood of an orca run-in has added another harrowing element to an already dangerous job.

“Of course they can sink you,” fisherman Manuel Merianda told NBC News earlier this month as he plucked out errant stingrays trapped in his fishing net after harvesting the night’s catch. “They break your rudder and water and waves begin to enter your boat, and once the water enters there is nothing you can do.”

On one of his recent fishing trips, Merianda’s boat was followed by a pod of orcas, an experience he described as terrifying. Yet when asked if that risk made orcas his enemy, Merianda shook his head.

“We are the ones who are in their habitat,” he said in Spanish. “We are the ones who don’t have to be there.”

The encounters have nonetheless become so frequent that Spanish authorities have issued an alert, urging sailors to stay close to the coastline, where the orcas don’t tend to stray, especially during the summer months.

Often the creatures will ram into the rudders, potentially rendering the vessels inoperable, or even bite off pieces of the boats.

Why Iberian orcas are attacking ships in the Strait of Gibraltar, one of the world’s busiest waterways, has quickly become one of the terrifying mysteries of the sea. The highly intelligent animals are known to be generally peaceful, especially toward humans, and before 2020, such interactions were basically unheard-of.

Not everyone believes these events, while harrowing and dangerous, constitute “attacks” in the literal sense of the word.

“Attacking implies something aggressive towards humans,” said Janek Andre, whose organization WeWhale tries to protect orcas. “These orcas are simply playing. So in the end, we call it — and everybody should call it — an interaction.”

Nearly every day during summer months, Andre and his teammates board a small boat on the Spanish coast and sail into the strait to track the movement of the orcas. When they spot them, they radio their location to sailors in the area, encouraging them to stay away.

Marine biologists have a host of competing theories for what the orcas are doing, from the “play” theory championed by Andre to the notion the orcas are retaliating, either for damage that boats have done to orcas in the past or for human-caused pollution of the waters they rely on.

One theory holds that it may just be a fad — that the orcas, like popularity-chasing teenagers, have simply picked up a curious learned behavior that for whatever reason has become the trend of the moment.

But new research offers a competing theory that’s gained traction among those who study the orcas’ habitat.

Scientists from the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute, based on Spain’s northwest coast, have pointed out that in recent years, the once-dwindling population of Atlantic bluefin tuna has recovered, in the process becoming the linchpin of the orcas’ diet. Atlantic bluefin tuna are tough prey: They swim faster than orcas and grow up to 13 feet long.

In a paper published this month in the scientific journal Ocean and Coastal Management, the scientists argue that what humans see as attacks are actually older orcas training the younger ones on hunting methods needed to successfully overcome their prey.

“They need to ram, they need to hit, they need to bite, to isolate this large tuna. And then this has to be in cooperation,” Bruno Diaz Lopez, the institute’s founder and chief biologist, said in an interview. “So how do they reinforce this technique? Practicing.”

Orcas, or “killer whales,” can grow up to 27 feet long and weigh as much as six tons. Known as the ocean’s top predator, they’re extremely intelligent, with their own languages of clicks and whistles that differ from region to region.

The subspecies striking boats is called the Iberian orca, and its future is anything but certain. The creatures are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s “Red List” of critically endangered species. Only about 35 of them are still believed to be alive, and their reproductive rates have become alarmingly low.

Faced with the need to share the waters with gigantic mammals, sailors in the strait have tried various ways to deter orcas when they show up. Some make noise to try to scare them away, throw sand in the water, or push their motors to full speed and try to leave the area. Others advocate turning off the engine, keeping silent and playing dead.

As he plotted a course through rippling waters back toward the coast of Spain, Andre, the WeWhale founder, said he believed humans would never know with certainty why so many orca interactions are taking place.

“We are not orcas. So you can do a lot of science and studies,” Andre said. “But in the end, it’s such an unknown world for us, what’s happening below the water and how these animals actually interact.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

May 24, 2023

Why Has a Group of Orcas Suddenly Started Attacking Boats?

Killer whales in a group near Spain and Portugal may be teaching one another to mess with small boats. They sank their third vessel earlier this month

By Stephanie Pappas

A group of three orcas, also known as killer whales, are seen swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar. Individuals in the critically endangered subpopulation have been attacking boats off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Malcolm Schuyl/Alamy Stock Photo

A trio of orcas attacked a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar earlier this month, damaging it so badly that it sank soon afterward.

The May 4 incident was the third time killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) have sunk a vessel off the coasts of Portugal and Spain in the past three years. The subpopulation of orcas in this region began harassing boats, most often by biting at their rudder, in 2020. Almost 20 percent of these attacks caused enough damage to disable the vessels, says Alfredo López, an orca researcher at the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), which monitors the Iberian killer whale population. “It is a rare behavior that has only been detected in this part of the world,” he says.

Researchers aren’t sure why the orcas are going after the watercraft. There are two hypotheses, according to López. One is that the killer whales have invented a new fad, something that subpopulations of these members of the dolphin family are known to do. Much as in humans, orca fads are often spearheaded by juveniles, López says. Alternatively, the attacks may be a response to a bad past experience involving a boat.

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The first known incident occurred in May 2020 in the Strait of Gibraltar, an area with heavy boat traffic. Since then GTOA has recorded 505 cases of orcas reacting to boats. Sometimes they simply approached the vessels, and only a fraction of cases involved physical contact, López says. In a study published in June 2022 in Marine Mammal Science , he and his colleagues cataloged 49 instances of orca-boat contact in 2020 alone. The vast majority of the attacks were on sailboats or catamarans, with a handful involving fishing boats and motorboats. The average length of the vessels was 12 meters (39 feet). For comparison, a full-grown orca can be 9.2 meters (30 feet) long.

The researchers found that the orcas preferentially attack the boats’ rudder, sometimes scraping the hull with their teeth. Such attacks often snap the rudder, leaving the boat unable to navigate. In three cases, the animals damaged a boat so badly that it sank: In July 2022 they sank a sailboat with five people onboard. In November 2022 they caused a sailboat carrying four to go down. And finally, in this month’s attack, the Swiss sailing yacht Champagne had to be abandoned, and the vessel sank while it was towed to shore. In all cases, the people onboard were rescued safely.

In 2020 researchers observed nine different individual killer whales attacking boats; it’s unclear if others have since joined in. The attacks tended to come from two separate groups: a trio of juveniles occasionally joined by a fourth and a mixed-aged group consisting of an adult female named White Gladis, two of her young offspring and two of her sisters. Because White Gladis was the only adult involved in the initial incidents, the researchers speculate that she may have become entangled in a fishing line at some point, giving her a bad association with boats. Other adult orcas in the region have injuries consistent with boat collisions or entanglement, López says. “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,” he says.

The safe rescue of everyone involved, however, suggests to Deborah Giles that these orcas don’t have malevolent motivations against humans. Giles, science and research director of the Washington State–based nonprofit conservation organization Wild Orca, points out that humans relentlessly harassed killer whales off the coasts of Washington and Oregon in the 1960s and 1970s, capturing young orcas and taking them away for display at marine parks. “These are animals that, every single one of them, had been captured at one point or another—most whales multiple times. And these are whales that saw their babies being taken away from them and put on trucks and driven away, never to be seen again,” Giles says. “And yet these whales never attacked boats, never attacked humans.”

Though it’s possible that the orcas around the Iberian Peninsula could be reacting to a bad experience with a boat, Giles says, it’s pure speculation to attribute that motivation to the animals. The behavior does seem to be learned, she says, but could simply be a fad without much rhyme or reason—to the human mind, anyway. Famously, some members of the Southern Resident orcas that cruise Washington’s Puget Sound each summer and fall spent the summer of 1987 wearing dead salmon on their head. There was no apparent reason for salmon hats to come in vogue in orca circles, but the behavior spread and persisted for a few months before disappearing again. “We’re not going to know what’s happening with this population,” Giles says, referring to the Iberian orcas.

The Iberian orca attacks typically last less than 30 minutes, but they can sometimes go on for up to two hours, according to the 2022 study. In the case of the Champagne, two juvenile killer whales went after the rudder while an adult repeatedly rammed the boat, crew members told the German magazine Yacht . The attack lasted 90 minutes.

The Iberian orca subpopulation is considered critically endangered, with only 39 animals the last time a full census was conducted in 2011. A 2014 study found that this subpopulation follows the migration of their key prey , Atlantic bluefin tuna—a route that puts them in close contact with human fishing, military activities and recreational boating. Maritime authorities recommend that boaters in the area slow down and try to stay away from orcas, López says, but there is no guaranteed way to avoid the animals. He and his colleagues fear the boat attacks will come back and bite the orcas, either because boaters will lash out or because the attacks are dangerous to the animals themselves. “They run a great risk of getting hurt,” López says.

Watch CBS News

Boat captain twice ambushed by pod of orcas says "they knew exactly what they are doing"

By Li Cohen

June 12, 2023 / 8:07 AM EDT / CBS News

Orcas are making headlines as incidents of killer whales ambushing boats seem to be becoming more prevalent. For one boat captain, it's even happened twice – with the second time seemingly more targeted. 

Dan Kriz told Newsweek that the first time his boat was confronted by a pod of killer whales was in 2020, when he and his crew were delivering a yacht through the Strait of Gibraltar, which runs between Spain and Morocco. While anecdotes of orca ambushes have only recently started rising in popularity, he says he was on one of the first boats that experienced the "very unusual" behavior.

"I was surrounded with a pack of eight orcas, pushing the boat around for about an hour," Kriz said, adding that the ship's rudder was so damaged that they had to be towed to the nearest marina. 

Then in April, it happened again near the Canary Islands, he said. At first, Kriz thought they had been hit with a wave, but when they felt a sudden force again, he realized they weren't just feeling the wrath of the water. 

"My first reaction was, 'Please! Not again,'" Kraz told Newsweek. "There is not much one can do. They are very powerful and smart." 

Video of the encounter shows orcas "biting off both rudders," with one of the whales seen swimming around with a piece of rudder in its mouth, he said. 

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This time around, the orcas seemed to be more stealthy in their approach – and even seemed to know exactly what to do to prevent the boat from traveling any farther, Kriz said.

"First time, we could hear them communicating under the boat," he told Newsweek. "This time, they were quiet, and it didn't take them that long to destroy both rudders. ... Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing. They didn't touch anything else." 

The attack on the rudders lasted about 15 minutes. But when the crew started to head for Spain's coast, they came back. 

"Suddenly, one big adult orca started chasing us. In a couple of minutes, she was under the boat, and that was when we realized there was still a little piece of fiberglass left and she wanted to finish the job," Kriz said. "After that, we didn't see them anymore."

Kriz is just one of several people to experience encounters with orcas off the coasts of Portugal and Spain in recent months. In the past two years, orca research group GTOA found that incidents have more than tripled, with 52 interactions in 2020 and 207 in 2022. 

Biologist and wildlife conservationist Jeff Corwin previously told CBS News the behavior "highlights the incredible intelligence " of the whales. 

"What we're seeing is adapted behavior. We're learning about how they actually learn from their environment and then take those skill sets and share them and teach them to other whales," he said. 

He said there are two main theories about why this is happening: One, that it's a type of "play" or "sport" for the whales, or two, that it's the result of a "negative experience, a traumatic event" after years of boats hitting and injuring whales. 

But the truth behind  why killer whales have been ramming into boats remains a mystery.

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

Killer whales are the only species of whale that seem to be attacking boats in this region, and while the reason why is unclear, Trites said something is positively reinforcing the behavior among them.

Caitlin O'Kane contributed to this report.

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Li Cohen is a senior social media producer at CBS News. She previously wrote for amNewYork and The Seminole Tribune. She mainly covers climate, environmental and weather news.

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Orca attacking boat near Scotland marks first in North Sea, following Iberian coast incidents

An orca hit a seven-ton yacht carrying a 72-year-old multiple times on Monday off the Shetland Islands in Scotland, the sailor told The Guardian.

Retired Dutch physicist Dr Wim Rutten said he was sailing solo from the town Lerwick to Bergen, Norway, according to the Guardian. While fishing for mackerel off the back of the boat, Rutten said he came face to face with an orca that he initially saw through the clear water. The mammal soon repeatedly rammed the stern of the boat.

“What I felt most frightening was the very loud breathing of the animal,” Rutten told the Guardian.

The University of Twente professor said the whale stayed behind the boat and then disappeared before returning faster two or three times and later circling him, according to the Guardian. He added the mammal created “soft shocks” through the aluminum hull.

Orcas attacking boats: Spain's coast are seeing more killer whales touch, push and even turn vessels

Incident follows aggressive behavior near Spain, Portugal

Rutten said he immediately thought of the recent orca attacks on Spanish and Portuguese coasts . The Strait of Gibraltar waters were home to 20 orca incidents last month, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group and orcas have sunk three boats in Southern Europe since last summer.

The Atlantic Orca Working Group reported over 500 orca boat interactions from 2020 to 2023 yet Rutten’s encounter marks the first recent incident reported in the northern seas.

“Maybe he just wanted to play. Or look me in the eyes. Or to get rid of the fishing line,” Rutten said.

USA TODAY has reached out to Rutten for additional comment.

Experts say the orcas could be teaching each other to adapt this behavior. Juvenile Iberian killer whales — a "unique subpopulation of killer whales that lives in the northeast Atlantic," — were first documented touching, pushing, and even turning vessels, including some fishing and inflatable boats, in 2020, according to research group GT Orca Atlántica.

Andrew Trites, professor and director of Marine Mammal Research at the University of British Columbia, told CBS News the reason for the attacks remains to be an “unprecedented” mystery. Trites said something is positively reinforcing the orcas’ behavior suggesting that it’s possible they’re engaging in form of whale “play” or that they’re reacting to traumatic boat injuries.

"Yes they're killer whales. And yes their job is they're the apex predator in the ocean. However, there's never been a documented case of an orca attacking and killing a human being," whale expert Anne Gordon told USA Today in May, adding that the attacks are isolated incidents. "In normal circumstances there is absolutely zero threat to humans in a boat."

Experts recently gathered to address an "urgent need for specific actions based on international coordination between administrations, mariners and scientists to prevent future damage to people, orcas and vessels," GTOA said.

Cetacean clash: Photos capture group of orcas attacking a gray whale calf along the Oregon Coast

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Study explains why Orcas are attacking boats in the Strait of Gibraltar

13 June 2023 5 minutes

Experts say an orca known as ‘White Gladis’ may be attacking and damaging vessels after being traumatised by a boat injury, triggering a behavioural change that other orcas are imitating

By Victoria Heath

A 2022 study has shed light on the reasons why orcas (killer whales) have been attacking boats in the Strait of Gibraltar, with researchers theorising that the incidents began after a vessel injured a female orca named White Gladis . 

Since the attacks began in 2020, three boats have been sunk and more than 250 damaged by a group of orcas, with the animals appearing to deliberately target the vessels’ rudders.

Of the 35 killer whales in the region, 15 are reported to have been involved in the highly unusual interactions, which experts think began after White Gladis’ behaviour altered in a ‘defensive’ fashion after she suffered a ‘critical moment of agony’ involving a boat collision or illegal fishing entrapment – leading to other orcas damaging passing vessels in response. 

A study published in June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal Science has found that assaults by the orcas are directed mainly at sailing boats. There is a clear pattern of orcas striking the rudders, with spade rudders the most targeted and damaged type, and then losing interest once the boat has successfully stopped. 

The general movement of the orcas involved in the incidents was from the Strait of Gibraltar to Galicia in northern Spain, with at least one of the groups returning to southern Portugal.

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Understanding why orcas are damaging boats

After analysing over 47 testimonies, 110 pictures, and 69 videos, the study theorises some motivations that the orcas had to interact with vessels: a ‘punctual aversive incident’ such as collision with a vessel; the natural curiosity of the animals; or pressures already identified for killer whales such as prey depletion, boat disturbance and interaction with fisheries.

The study also considered how orcas – which are known to possess high cognitive abilities – are easily able to reproduce behaviour via social learning. In previous studies, the use and transmission of hunting techniques have been investigated in this particular subpopulation of orcas, leading to concerns from researchers that more orcas will eventually learn this new behaviour, aggravating the situation.

But co-author of the recent study, Alfredo López Fernandez , a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica (Atlantic Orca Working Group), said it isn’t as simple as White Gladis ‘teaching’ other orcas to retaliate in the wake of her boat injury.

‘We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behaviour has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives,’ López Fernandez said.

The orcas’ unusual behaviour could also be seen as a ‘fad’ – a temporary behaviour started by one orca and picked up by others before being abandoned.

According to Lòpez, it appears that orcas believe that the behaviour is advantageous , despite the risks associated with swimming near operating boats. Since these interactions first appeared in 2020, 4 orcas have died , although the deaths cannot be directly linked to the orcas’ encounters with boats.

The timeline of orca incidents

‘The reports of interactions have been continuous since 2020 in places where orcas are found, either in Galicia or in the Strait,’  said Lòpez-Fernadez.

Initially, the interactions baffled both researchers and recreational boat users. Rocío Espada, one of the study’s co-authors, who works with the marine biology laboratory at University of Seville and has observed orcas for years in the Strait of Gibraltar, explained her initial reaction to the orcas’ new behaviour.

‘For killer whales to take out a piece of a fibreglass rudder is crazy,’ Espada said in a 2020 interview with the Guardian . ‘I’ve seen these orcas grow from babies, I know their life stories, I’ve never seen or heard of attacks.’

One of the first reported attacks by orcas on a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar was in July 2020, when orcas rammed the hull of a boat that researcher Victoria Morris was crewing for over an hour, leaving the vessel without steering. In the same year, couple Beverly Harris and Kevin Large were motor-sailing their 50ft boat when orcas began to spin the vessel.

The latest of the three sinkings occurred on 4 May, when German skipper Werner Schaufelberger’s boat was so severely damaged by the orcas that it sank while being towed to safety by the Spanish coastguard.

In June, British sailor Iain Hamilton was marooned for several days after the rudder of his boat, the Butey of Clyde, was destroyed by five orcas off the coast of Gibraltar.

The difficult life led by Gibraltar orcas 

A 2011 census of recorded 39 individuals in the Gibraltar orca subpopulation, which today, with 35 members, is classed as Critcally Endangered by the IUCN Red List of threatened species due to a number of factors, including pollution, fishing, food scarcity and sustained injuries.

Orcas are drawn to the area due to the presence of bluefin tuna, a fish also highly-prized by humans, leading to a complex interaction between fishers, orca and tuna. The interaction is often dangerous to the orcas, which are known to ‘steal’ fish from drop lines, resulting while in serious hook injuries to their dorsal fins.

The narrow Strait of Gibraltar is also both a major shipping route and huge draw for whale-watching tours due to the presence of the orcas – leading to the constant threat of boat strikes from the heavy marine traffic.

The future of Gibraltar orcas 

The researchers behind the 2022 study into why killer whales are attacking boat traffic in the Strait of Gibraltar are concerned of the potential impact that this behaviour may have on both orcas and mariners.

‘If this situation continues or intensifies, it could become a real concern for the mariners’ safety and a conservation issue for this endangered subpopulation of killer whales,’ the researchers wrote.

‘There is an urgent need to conduct dedicated research that would help better understand the behaviour of the animals and implement mitigation measures.’

The complete study, ‘ Killer whales of the Strait of Gibraltar, an endangered subpopulation showing a disruptive behavior ,’ by Ruth Esteban ,  Alfredo López et al is published in Marine Mammal Science

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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.

Spain warns small ships of possible orca run-ins after killer whale causes boat to sink

An orca knocked a 50-foot boat in moroccan waters several times, damaging its rudder and causing a leak. , by joseph wilson | associated press • published may 14, 2024.

Following the ramming of a small boat by an orca in the Strait of Gibraltar, authorities in Spain issued recommendations Tuesday that small vessels stick to the coastline in that region to avoid often-scary interactions with killer whales during summer months.

In the latest incident, two people aboard a 15-meter (50-foot) boat in Moroccan waters requested help from Spain’s maritime rescue service Sunday after reporting that an orca knocked the craft several times, damaging its rudder and causing a leak. The people were picked up by a passing oil tanker summoned by the rescuers, and their boat later sank.

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Spain’s ministries for transport and the environment, along with its merchant marines, issued notices Tuesday urging both sailing boats and small motorboats to beware of orcas between May and August in the area between the Strait of Gibraltar and the Gulf of Cadiz.

The Atlantic Orca Working Group, a team of Spanish and Portuguese marine life researchers who study killer whales near the Iberia Peninsula, says were 197 such known interactions in 2021 and another 207 in 2022.

A pod of orcas even disrupted a sailing race last year, when a boat sailing from the Netherlands to Italy had a 15-minute encounter with the animals, prompting the crew to drop their craft's sails and raise a clatter to fend them off.

There have been no reports of attacks against swimmers. The interactions on boats seem to stop once the vessel becomes immobilized.

The researchers say that the killer whales seem to be targeting boats in a wide arc covering the western coast of the Iberia Peninsula, from the waters near the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain’s northwestern Galicia.

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The orcas off the Iberian coast average from five to 6½ meters (16-21 feet) in length, compared to orcas in Antarctica that reach nine meters (29½ feet).

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Boat-ramming orcas may be using yachts as target practice toys, scientists suggest

Experts have a new theory about why orcas are targeting sailboats in the Iberian Peninsula — they're using them to practice hunting their favorite food.

Scientists have a new theory to explain why orcas are ramming yachts in the Iberian Peninsula — the boats are practice targets for learning to hunt their favorite food.

When young Iberian orcas ( Orcinus orca ) started hitting and sinking boats in 2020, experts wondered whether it was revenge , accidental, or just a fun thing to do . But the new theory suggests the juvenile orcas might be using the boats' rudders as targets to practice hunting Atlantic bluefin tuna ( Thunnus thynnus ).

Since 2020, the sailing community has been, understandably, highly interested in the predators' whereabouts. "We saw that as a great opportunity for science," study lead author Bruno Díaz López , director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI), told Live Science. The team realized they could use citizen science to gather accurate data about the orca population's distribution. "The sailors aren't going to be lying to each other because it's quite a serious problem," he said. Nearly half (47%) of the study's 597 records of killer whale occurrences related to vessel interactions.

Using this data, the team created computer models of the orcas' movements to fill knowledge gaps around their seasonal movements. Their models showed that the orcas and tuna are driven by the same environmental factors, meaning that knowing where the tuna are located gives you a good idea where the orcas will be. They discovered seasonal shifts in the orcas' preferred habitats, which align with the tuna's migration.

Related: A really big shark got gobbled up by another, massive shark in 1st known case of its kind

The findings were published June 18 in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management .

Orcas are highly specialized predators, and different communities prefer different prey, depending on the most abundant food available. Iberian orcas "really depend on tuna," Díaz López said.

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Atlantic bluefin tuna are no longer endangered thanks to conservation measures to protect them from overfishing. Their recovery makes it easier for the Iberian orcas to find food, giving them more leisure time. "If you eat well, you have more time to play," Díaz López said.

And this play might give them the opportunity to practice useful skills. Orcas have to work together to catch tuna, as the fish can weigh hundreds of pounds, swim in large schools and are among the fastest fish in the sea.

To isolate an individual tuna and get it away from the protection of the group, the orcas ram, Díaz López said. "Maybe one orca hits, and then the other one hits again," he said. Once the orcas have separated an individual tuna, they tire it out and drive it towards shallower waters where it's easier to catch.

From reports of the killer whales' behavior towards sailboats, Díaz López believes the orcas are performing similar actions as they would during a hunt: repeatedly ramming the fast-moving rudder before trying to bite it. "To play is to learn," he said. "If you have a dog and you use a toy, the dog is learning a hunting technique."

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Erich Hoyt , a researcher at marine charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation, who was not involved in the study, agrees that the orcas are likely playing. The interactions are most likely due to "normal predator curiosity leading to play behavior," he told Live Science via email. However, he's not convinced the boats are just target practice.

"I don't believe the orcas are playing with the rudders just to refine their hunting skills for tuna," he said. "I think their play is more like kids' play, without a set goal but which, in effect, helps building cognitive and physical skills."

To prevent further negative encounters, Hoyt recommends sailors monitor the orcas' movements and stay away. "The more the activity happens, the more it gets reinforced to continue," he said.

He believes this behavior is a phase that will eventually fizzle out. "In our limited experience we have seen that fads disappear over time," he said.

Melissa Hobson is a freelance writer who specializes in marine science, conservation and sustainability, and particularly loves writing about the bizarre behaviors of marine creatures. Melissa has worked for several marine conservation organizations where she soaked up their knowledge and passion for protecting the ocean. A certified Rescue Diver, she gets her scuba fix wherever possible but is too much of a wimp to dive in the UK these days so tends to stick to tropical waters. Her writing has also appeared in National Geographic, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, New Scientist, VICE and more.

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A curious near miss appears to suggest that up close, we're just not that appealing.

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Frankly never been so relieved to not be to someone's tastes.

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Orcas, or killer whales, are known to some as the velociraptors of the sea for the incredibly orchestrated attacks they carry out in the wild. From spy hopping to wave washing, a simple seal faces a hell of a fight in getting out alive, and as a human I don’t much fancy my chances, either.

Despite their upper hand in the predator-prey game, there are very few reported cases of orcas attacking humans in the wild. People even swim with them in places like Norway and New Zealand , but given some conservation organizations strictly advise against it, is it wise?

Treat them like you would a grizzly bear. Prof Volker Deecke

Is it safe to swim with orcas?

“I have never been in the water with killer whales and would not recommend it,” Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the Institute of Science and Environment, University of Cumbria, and killer whale expert, Volker Deecke told IFLScience. “While they are unlikely to be overtly aggressive to people, they are big powerful animals, and can cause injury even accidentally if disturbed. Treat them like you would a grizzly bear.”

Add to that, in some parts of the world you can expect a hefty fine . In New Zealand, the Department Of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai warns that anyone swimming within 100 meters (328 feet) of a whale can expect a $10,000 fine (around $6,100 USD) under the Marine Mammals Protection Regulations 1992. While they say that “no records exist of deliberate fatal attacks on humans,” is that the case for the rest of the world?

Do orcas attack humans?

An unverified report of a human being killed by an orca was included in a 2014 paper , provided by two Igloolik elders. The fatality occurred when a young man went to look at some orcas stuck in the ice, believing he could outrun them if they gave chase. An orca did just that, broke through the ice, and ate him.

Those telling the story had few details and were reportedly not there when it happened, but it could be argued that the unique circumstances of the orcas being trapped in the ice may have influenced their behavior. In any case, such attacks appear to be rare globally.

“Aggressive interactions with humans are rare, and there has never been a documented fatal attack by a wild killer whale,” wrote the authors. “There is a single documented instance of a wild killer whale biting a surfer in California in 1972; and in 2005, a killer whale charged and bumped into, but did not bite, a 12-year-old boy who was swimming in shallow water in southeastern Alaska.”

That latter example makes for a particularly curious interaction with a wild animal. The young boy wasn’t wearing a wetsuit when a group of Bigg’s (transient) killer whales entered the bay. An adult male whale was then spotted rushing towards the boy, who heard gunshot-like sounds coming from under the water, but when the whale reached him it only bumped him , rather than biting him.

So, what made the whale change its mind?

Why don’t wild orcas attack humans?

“Killer whales and other toothed whales have a highly sophisticated sensory toolkit that helps them determine what is and isn’t suitable prey,” explained Deecke. “Whereas sharks rely on olfaction and visual cues, killer whales use their echolocation to detect prey at ranges of several hundred metres and only switch to visual cues at close range. Whereas as a species, killer whales have a very broad diet, each individual population appears to specialise on a very specific prey type, which may explain why humans are not attacked.”

He did not match the prey image and the whale abandoned the attack. Prof Volker Deecke

“Another factor is that humans swimming in killer whale habitat often wear a wet- or drysuit. A bare-skinned human may appear vaguely similar to, say, a seal to an echolocating predator, as the echolocation signal is reflected by the air in the lungs, stomach, etc. However a human wearing a wet- or drysuit will ‘look’ very different, as the air bubbles in the neoprene will reflect all sound.”

When it comes to our 12-year-old’s near miss in Alaska, it could be that the decision not to wear a wetsuit made him look appealing from far away, but upon closer inspection, the killer whale changed its mind.

“My interpretation is that, not wearing a wetsuit, the boy appeared to be suitable prey when the whale echolocated on him,” Deecke added, “but when the whale was within visual range he did not match the prey image and the whale abandoned the attack.”

Orcas attacking humans in captivity

Wild orcas are almost universally disinterested in pursuing humans, but when it comes to captive animals, it’s a very different story. The unsuitability of captive environments for such intelligent creatures has been widely discussed in the public forum, with films like Blackfish highlighting how it can have  devastating outcomes for the animals and the trainers entering the water with them.

Orcas up-close

It’s important to adhere to guidelines provided by local wildlife authorities if you’re going to be out in waters visited by marine life. There are, however, the lucky few out there that get to see these magnificent animals in the pursuit of their research, and as Deecke said, killer whales really can put on an impressive – albeit slightly intimidating – display.

“I have been around killer whales in small inflatables during several attacks on marine mammals,” he said. “On occasion, individuals came over to inspect the boat, surfacing in close proximity and often exhaling particularly forcefully.”

“I remember that on one occasion a large juvenile opened her mouth and showed off her teeth before diving under the boat. Witnessing their strength and power at close range is certainly intimidating and I had no desire to dive in!”

Hear, hear.

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Zwei Salzburger versichern Yachten gegen Orca-Kollision

Bei Seglern sind die häufiger werdenden Orca-Attacken längst Thema. Für zwei Salzburger ein Geschäftsmodell: Sie versichern die teils Millionen teuren Segelyachten.

Die Vorfälle mehren sich: Vor Gibraltar sank im Mai eine 16 Meter lange Yacht, nachdem sie von Orcas beschädigt worden war. Auch vor Spanien und Portugal mussten sich Crews in Sicherheit bringen, nachdem ihre Boote von Orcas gerammt worden waren. ...

Deine Zukunft – Deine Chance! Werde Fensterprofi!

Assistent:in firmenkunden, tankwagenfahrer/in.

Großgmain: 4-Zimmer-Gartenmaisonettewohnung Top A02

Dipl.-kfm. hagen osthoff, alois leitner, rosalia neff, erna prossinger.

Hannah Schmidhuber

Melina Schrotter

Fotoblog / Schöne Heimat