Has the mystery of the orc attack finally been solved? In a webinar organized in mid-June, Mónica González, marine biologist at the Coordinadora para o Estudo dos Mamíferos Mariños (CEMMA), examined the case of White Gladis, the female killer whale undoubtedly behind the attacks.
Traumatized During Pregnancy?
According to the scholar, the timeline shows that White Gladis was likely pregnant when she suffered a traumatic incident in 2020. She was reportedly hit by a ship or tangled in a fishing net, an event that would have triggered this aggressive behavior to other orcas since then. She would then have given birth to her child in 2021. However, during the summer of 2020, incidents of physical contact between orcas and boats began and only increased, with three boats sinking and more than 100 others damaged.
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But that’s not all. Mónica González reveals White Gladis is so obsessed with boats that she would neglect her baby named Gladis Filabres. Adolescents are completely dependent on their mother for at least the first two years of life. This is also the reason why the females, who devote themselves entirely to their offspring, only give birth to an average of five young over the course of their long lives (their life expectancy can be over 100 years).
A neglected baby?
“White Gladis, she went to the boats with this baby, so she stopped the boats rather than keep her little one safe. Stopping the boats was more important to her than protecting her little one, leading to the assumption that something bad happened,” said Mónica González.
Before adding, “Her decision to potentially compromise the safety of her newborn suggests she suffered a serious traumatic incident that may be related to a sailboat towing a fishing line.”
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While juvenile killer whales are likely to attack watercraft out of curiosity and playfulness — “like a kid playing with a soccer ball in the kitchen and breaking a window” — adults are more likely to interact with watercraft out of fear or trauma, the biologist continued.
The tiny Gladis Filabres is now one of 11 identified juveniles targeting vessels off Portugal and Spain. And the attacks don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. As well as continuing off the Iberian coast, the attack was first reported much further north, near Norway.
On the same topic:
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