Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave
The orcas have done it again.
On October 31, a pod of killer whales swamped a Polish yacht traveling in the Strait of Gibraltar. According to the operating company, the orcas hit the ship’s rudder for 45 minutes and damaged the boat. Despite rescue efforts, the yacht never made it back to land and sank near the entrance to the Moroccan port of Tanger Med.
“The crew is safe, uninjured and healthy,” Polish travel company Morskie Mile wrote in a Facebook post about its boat’s sinking.
Since 2020, orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar and along the Iberian Peninsula have been striking and biting boats – often yachts – in dozens of incidents that have frightened sailors and unnerved scientists.
A recent spate of killer whales sinking boats delighted online observers who are anthropomorphizing the marine mammals and celebrating them as working-class heroes.
A 2022 study found that fishing vessels and motorboats have frequently encountered orcas in the region, but sailboats appear to be the most popular target. Morskie Mile travel agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
No one is entirely sure what causes the orcas to chase ships – whether the whales are simply playful or whether they had a bad encounter with a boat in the past that led to the aggressive behavior.
Some scientists say the incidents shouldn’t be called “attacks” at all because the whale’s motives are unknown. They fear that perpetuating the idea that whales are out for revenge could lead to retaliation from boaters.
“We urge the media and the public to stop projecting narratives onto these animals,” a group of more than 30 scientists wrote in an open letter this summer. “In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume that they understand animals’ motivations.”
What we do know is that orcas are highly intelligent marine mammals that seem to learn from each other. Typically, this learned behavior is a hunting strategy, such as caging and eating giant blue whales.
In other cases, it’s something stranger, like when orcas near Seattle were observed “wearing” dead salmon as hats. It turns out that orcas can also be victims of cultural fads.
One thing is still clear: killer whales usually do not harm people. And humans pose a greater threat to them than to us.
All whales are at risk of becoming entangled in fishing gear or being struck by fast-moving boats. With perhaps fewer than 40 individuals remaining, the orca population off the coasts of Spain, Portugal and Morocco is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.