yachts killer whales

Why are killer whales going ‘Moby-Dick’ on yachts lately? Experts doubt it’s revenge

• Copy Link URL Copied!

The attacks started suddenly and inexplicably in the spring of 2020 — pods of endangered killer whales began ramming yachts and fishing boats in European waters, pushing some off course and imperiling others.

Since then, there have been more than 500 reports of orca encounters off the Iberian Peninsula, the most recent occurring Thursday when a trio of whales rubbed against and bumped a racing sloop in the Strait of Gibraltar.

In most cases, the financial and structural damage has ranged from minimal to moderate: Boats have been spun and pushed, and rudders have been smashed and destroyed. Three vessels have been so badly mauled, they’ve sunk.

As the encounters continue, shaky video captured by thrilled and fearful seafarers has ignited a global internet sensation, while experts have struggled to explain the behavior and its timing. The seemingly militant whales have also won over a legion of adoring fans — many transfixed by the notion that the mammals are targeting rich people and exacting revenge for all the wrongs humanity has waged on their species and their ocean home.

Two dozen killer whales spotted celebrating a hunt off the San Francisco coast

The unusually large group spotted near the Farallon Islands was possibly a meeting of six or seven families.

June 7, 2023

Others wonder if the unusually large pods of multi-ton cetaceans now appearing off the coasts of San Francisco , Monterey and Nantucket, Mass., may soon follow suit.

Despite such rampant speculation on social media, most killer whale scientists have offered a very different interpretation. The Moby-Dick “revenge” narrative for the behavior is highly unlikely, they say.

“That just doesn’t sit right with me,” said Deborah Giles, an orca researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of Wild Orca, a Washington-based conservation research organization.

She noted that despite the long history of orcas being hunted by whalers — and more recently marine parks — these top ocean predators have typically demonstrated a lack of aggression toward humans. There are no verified instances of orcas killing humans in the wild. The only deaths have occurred in marine parks and aquariums, where animals taken from the wild and forced to perform for humans in small tanks have attacked their trainers.

“So, I just don’t really see it as an agonistic activity; I just don’t see it going down like that,” said Giles, who has studied killer whales in the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound and the Salish Sea for nearly 20 years.

Instead, she thinks the animals are engaging with boats because the vessels are “either making an interesting vibration or sound, or maybe it’s the way the water moves past the keels that is intriguing to these animals.”

The scientific literature is rife with anecdotes and research showing high cognition, playfulness and sociality in the species known as Orcinus orca — and examples of what appear to be the cultural transmission of new behaviors, either via teaching or observation.

In 1987, a female orca in the Pacific waters off North America was spotted sporting a dead salmon on her head. Within weeks, individuals in two other pods also began wearing fish hats. The trend lasted a few months and fizzled out within a year.

In South Africa, the killing of white sharks appears to be growing in popularity among a resident group of killer whales in the waters near Cape Town; Giles has watched a local trend of “phocoenacide” — porpoise killing — grow among a group of whales off the San Juan Islands.

Wildfire burn areas in California are growing ever larger due to greenhouse gas emissions

Between 1996 and 2020, wildfire burn areas in California grew five times larger than in the 25 years prior. Scientists say climate change is to blame.

June 14, 2023

In both cases, the behavior does not appear to be for the purpose of feeding, Giles said. The orcas do not eat the dead animals. For instance, in the case of the porpoises, the killer whales played with them — bandying them about, sometimes surfing with them, other times carrying them on the orcas’ pectoral fins — until the porpoises drowned, at which point they were abandoned, she said.

“Fads” are not unique to orcas. Other animals, including primates and other cetaceans, have also been observed to adopt new behaviors, which then spread through a social group.

Susan Perry, a biological anthropologist at UCLA, has studied a population of capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica, where she has observed and demonstrated the cultural transmission of novel behaviors, including “eye poking” — in which one monkey slips its finger “knuckle deep” between the eyelid and the bottom of another monkey’s eyeball.

But the idea that the whales’ behavior is a response to trauma has gripped many — including the researchers who most closely study this population and first documented the behavior.

In a paper published last year , a team of Portuguese and Spanish researchers suggested the behavior seen in the Strait of Gibraltar orcas could have been triggered by a variety of causes, including trauma.

Alfredo López Fernandez, a killer whale researcher with GT Orca Atlántica, a Portuguese conservation research organization, said it is impossible to know how it started, or which whale or whales may have initially instigated the attacks.

He listed several adult females as the possible original perpetrators — which then taught or showed others how to participate.

There is White Gladis, which seems to be present in most of the attacks; Gladis Negra, which was observed to have injuries in 2020, possibly from a ship strike; and Gray Gladis, which in 2018 witnessed another whale get trapped in fishing gear.

Gladis is a name given to all orcas in the pod that interact with boats; it comes from Orca gladiator, an early nickname given to these boat-jouncing killer whales.

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

For Cal Currier’s part, he thinks the whales are entertaining themselves.

Climate & Environment

Bay Area refinery fallout does not pose significant health risk, authorities say

Nearly six months after Martinez Refining Co. released hazardous materials, officials have announced reassuring soil test results.

June 9, 2023

On June 8, as the 17-year-old Palo Alto High School senior sailed through the strait with his father, James, 55, and brother, West, 19, their 30-foot sailboat was accosted and spun in circles.

The rudder was battered, and the trio had to be towed to shore in Spain. “They were playing,” Currier said.

He said that when they pulled in, they were told roughly 30 other boats were ahead of them in line for repairs; half were damaged by the killer whales. He said there were no bite marks on the rudder, and he did not sense aggression from the whales.

For Giles, the Washington killer whale researcher, her biggest concern is that the longer the whales continue this behavior, the more likely it is they’ll get injured or suffer retribution at the hands of humans.

She’s hoping authorities in the region will consider non-traumatic hazing techniques — such as instructing boats to play or make sounds that irritate the whales — to get them to stop. She said studies have shown orcas don’t like the calls of pilot whales and will generally swim away if they hear them. Loud banging sounds, such as hitting a large, metal oikomi pipe underwater, can also be effective.

“Anything that might irritate them, make them lose their interest or swim away,” Giles said.

Currier said he wasn’t too rattled by the whole experience — unlike his dad and brother, who were “scared for their lives.”

The trio have since sold the boat and intend to spend the rest of the vacation on dry land.

More to Read

35- to 40-foot fin whale washes up on Torrance Beach; public asked to keep a distance

Aug. 11, 2024

Outbreak of neurotoxin killing unprecedented number of sea lions along California coast

Whale surfaces, capsizes fishing boat off New Hampshire coast

July 24, 2024

Susanne Rust is an award-winning investigative reporter specializing in environmental issues. She is based in the Bay Area.

More From the Los Angeles Times

What I learned by documenting the lives of abandoned dogs

Sept. 27, 2024

‘Mind-blowing’ moment: Whale-watching tour spots white shark feeding off Santa Barbara coast

Sept. 25, 2024

Brittany Furlan, Tommy Lee’s wife, snatches dog back from coyote. Chubbiness saved pooch, she says

Sept. 24, 2024

Concern grows as bird flu outbreaks continue to rise among California dairy herds

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

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."

Orcas have sunk 3 boats in Europe and appear to be teaching others to do the same. But why?

Scientists think a traumatized orca initiated the assault on boats after a "critical moment of agony" and that the behavior is spreading among the population through social learning.

Orcas have attacked and sunk a third boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behavior is being copied by the rest of the population.

Three orcas ( Orcinus orca ), also known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast of Spain, and pierced the rudder. "There were two smaller and one larger orca," skipper Werner Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht . "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." 

Schaufelberger said he saw the smaller orcas imitate the larger one. "The two little orcas observed the bigger one's technique and, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat." Spanish coast guards rescued the crew and towed the boat to Barbate, but it sank at the port entrance.

Two days earlier, a pod of six orcas assailed another sailboat navigating the strait. Greg Blackburn, who was aboard the vessel, looked on as a mother orca appeared to teach her calf how to charge into the rudder. "It was definitely some form of education, teaching going on," Blackburn told 9news .

Reports of aggressive encounters with orcas off the Iberian coast began in May 2020 and are becoming more frequent, according to a study published June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal Science . Assaults seem to be mainly directed at sailing boats and follow a clear pattern, with orcas approaching from the stern to strike the rudder, then losing interest once they have successfully stopped the boat.

"The reports of interactions have been continuous since 2020 in places where orcas are found, either in Galicia or in the Strait," said co-author Alfredo López Fernandez , a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or Atlantic Orca Working Group.

Related: Grisly new footage shows orcas attacking a great white shark and eating its liver  

Sign up for the Live Science daily newsletter now

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

Most encounters have been harmless, López Fernandez told Live Science in an email. "In more than 500 interaction events recorded since 2020 there are three sunken ships. We estimate that killer whales only touch one ship out of every hundred that sail through a location."

The spike in aggression towards boats is a recent phenomenon, López Fernandez said. Researchers think that a traumatic event may have triggered a change in the behavior of one orca, which the rest of the population has learned to imitate.

"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," López Fernandez said. 

Experts suspect that a female orca they call White Gladis suffered a "critical moment of agony" — a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing — that flipped a behavioral switch. "That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat," López Fernandez said.

Orcas are social creatures that can easily learn and reproduce behaviors performed by others, according to the 2022 study. In the majority of reported cases , orcas have made a beeline for a boat's rudder and either bitten, bent or broken it.

"We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behavior 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.

— 2 orcas slaughter 19 sharks in a single day in South Africa, eating their livers and leaving them to rot

— Orca males are burnouts who let their moms do all the hunting, surprising study finds

— Orcas and humpbacks clash in a violent melee of breaching and biting  

Orcas appear to perceive the behavior as advantageous, despite the risk they run by slamming into moving boat structures, López Fernandez added. Since the abnormal interactions began in 2020, four orcas belonging to a subpopulation living in Iberian waters have died, although their deaths cannot be directly linked to encounters with boats.

The unusual behavior could also be playful or what researchers call a "fad" — a behavior initiated by one or two individuals and temporarily picked up by others before it’s abandoned. "They are incredibly curious and playful animals and so this might be more of a play thing as opposed to an aggressive thing," Deborah Giles , an orca researcher at the University of Washington and at the non-profit Wild Orca, told Live Science.

As the number of incidents grows, there is increased concern both for sailors and for the Iberian orca subpopulation, which is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List . The last census, in 2011, recorded just 39 Iberian orcas, according to the 2022 study. "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. 

Sascha is a U.K.-based trainee staff writer at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and the health website Zoe. Besides writing, she enjoys playing tennis, bread-making and browsing second-hand shops for hidden gems.

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

2 young orcas ram sailboat off northern France — 800 miles from 'attack' hotspot

Watch extremely rare footage of a bigfin squid 'walking' on long, spindly arms deep in the South Pacific

Most Popular

• 2 'The secret to living to 110 was, don't register your death': Ig Nobel winner Saul Justin Newman on the flawed data on extreme aging
• 3 New self-swab HPV test is an alternative to Pap smears. Here's how it works.
• 4 Nuking an asteroid could save Earth from destruction, researchers show in 1st-of-its-kind X-ray experiment
• 5 Experts predicted way more hurricanes this year — here's the weird reason we're 'missing' storms

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.

More from CBS News

Israel says it struck Hezbollah's headquarters in huge blast in Beirut

Deadly strikes in Lebanon go on as Netanyahu shifts tone on cease-fire

Hurricane Isaac strengthens, Tropical Storm Joyce forms in the Atlantic

New Chinese nuclear attack submarine sank, U.S. officials says

Pod of killer whales attacks and sinks 50-foot yacht in Strait of Gibraltar

The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.

A pod of killer whales attacked and sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar, between Spain and Morocco, officials confirmed to ABC News.

Two people were on board the vessel when the incident occurred Sunday at 9 a.m. local time, according to Spain's maritime authority.

The nearly 50-foot yacht, named The Alboran Cognac, was 15 miles from Cabo Espartel in Morocco when an unknown number of orcas began ramming it.

MORE: Killer whales learn 'coordinated' attacks on sailboats, some observers say

The couple alerted Spanish authorities and a rescue team arrived to extricate them from the vessel an hour after the attack, though officials were unable to salvage the sinking boat.

There have been approximately 700 orca attacks since 2020, according to GT Orca Atlantica, a conservation group, and officials believe there are more than 37 orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar.

The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, separating Europe from Africa.

"During the summer and autumn of 2020, interaction events began to occur between several specimens of this species and vessels, mainly sailboats, both in the Strait of Gibraltar and in the waters of the Galician coast," according to Spanish government officials. "These interactions have ranged from persistent approaches to ships, to ramming the hull and rudder, causing various types of damage, which continue today."

It's unclear why orcas attack boats, though experts hypothesize the marine mammals could be targeting vessels for sport or they feel threatened.

According to a study in Biological Conservation , a peer-reviewed journal, "sophisticated learning abilities" have been found to exist in orcas.

In June 2023, racing yachts in the Strait of Gibraltar had a close encounter with a pod of orcas, race officials said at the time.

Crew members aboard a rival pair of 65-foot yachts were on the final leg of The Ocean Race, a global sailing competition, when they reported being intercepted by killer whales as their boats approached the Strait of Gibraltar.

No fatalities were reported in the incident, according to officials.

Related Topics

Popular reads.

Americans can order free COVID tests again

• Sep 26, 9:26 AM

Court explosion suspect faces multiple felonies

• Sep 25, 8:08 PM

New York City Mayor Eric Adams indicted

• Sep 26, 8:13 AM

Trump's failed try to change funding plan

• Sep 25, 6:36 PM

College closes after threats in Springfield, Ohio

• Sep 15, 5:31 PM

ABC News Live

24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

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

Around the World With The Times

Our reporters across the globe take you into the field..

Africa’s Youngest Elected Leader: In his first interview with Western media since becoming president of Senegal , Bassirou Diomaye Faye said the United Nations has to change to reflect changing world demographics.

A Litmus Test in Japan: The nine candidates vying to become prime minister have been differentiated by their stances on a law requiring married couples to share a family name .

Finding Solace in Soccer: For dozens of women who fled Myanmar and settled in Thailand, soccer has become a refuge  from both the troubles of daily life and conservative cultural norms.

Sri Lanka’s New President: Anura Kumara Dissanayake offered his broad leftist coalition as the best hope for a different political culture in the country , one not ruled by nepotism and corruption.

An Irish Bishop’s Secrets: The funeral of Bishop Eamonn Casey in 2017 seemed to draw a line under his scandalous affair years before. But this summer, disturbing new allegations emerged .

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.

The Mad Scientist and the Killer Whales

By Tomas Weber

Tomas Weber

T he five animals took an hour to put the sailboat beneath the waves. At the end of October 2022, four men, each in his late twenties, set sail from western France toward Lisbon. Augustin Drion, an experienced sailor from Brittany, was one of them. He had come to lend a hand to a friend from engineering school, Elliot Boyard, who owned the 39-foot sailing vessel. From Portugal, they planned to cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean. They would cruise around the islands for a year. Then they would return home. 

He heard a crash. The boat shook, and Drion lost his balance. “What happened?” he shouted up to the others. There was banging on the hull from the outside. The crew looked over the side and saw black fins breaking the glassy surface. Five killer whales , each more than half the length of the boat, their glossy skin shining in the sunlight, were taking turns swimming into the back of the sailboat, ramming the rudder with their heads. With each crash, the boat jolted into a new direction. 

Editor’s picks

The 100 best tv episodes of all time, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, 25 most influential creators of 2024.

After a while, Drion began to worry about the boat’s structural integrity. He went down into the cockpit. This time, there was water on the floor. A steady stream flowed in from a crack in the stern. The boat was quickly flooding, and it was starting to sink. Boyard put out a mayday call. The nearest vessel was 60 minutes away, and the men inflated the lifeboat. They wanted to stay on the sinking boat for as long as possible, worried that the orcas might decide to sink their life raft, too — which would be catastrophic. But the water was rising quickly, and they all crowded into the blow-up dinghy. They looked around. The killer whales had gone. A Swedish yacht arrived to pick them up. The men watched the top of the sailboat’s mast disappear beneath the swells.  

It Was Supposed to Be a Sting Operation. Did ICE Traffic Drugs Instead?

Rolling stone celebrates latin music, an oil field, an explosion, and a man’s fight for his life.

The group of orcas that live around the Iberian Peninsula are the only killer whales that attack boats, and researchers know very little about them. There is only one scientific paper about their new hobby. The Portuguese government has advised sailors to stop moving if killer whales hit them, and wait for them to get bored — which is what Drion and Boyard did instinctively. The Spanish authorities, though, say keep going. In 2020, the Spanish government banned small sailing boats from a part of northwestern Spain. Meanwhile, the attacks are spreading. This community of orcas, documented in the Strait of Gibraltar since the Roman Empire, consists of nearly 90 animals. Some scientists believe that all of them now ram sailing boats. What triggered the behavior is unclear. One hypothesis, though, has taken off: The orcas are seeking revenge. 

The notion of killer whales with vendettas against humans — whether for injuring them with boat propellers, or for picking their tuna hunting grounds clean, or for ruining the climate, or for capturing their brothers and sisters and imprisoning them in swimming pools — took the internet by storm last summer. You can buy stickers and mugs of the Gladis orcas. “Fuck them boats.” “Eat the Rich.” “Support for Comrade Gladis.” 

But these aren’t superyachts. The orcas tend to leave fishing boats alone, too. The targets include humble craft, sailing boats of the kind you can buy for the cost of a cheap used car. For their owners and crew, many of whom are not, by sailing standards, especially wealthy, the attacks are terrifying. The most recent sinking was last October. There is no reliable way to deter them, and sailors are completely at their mercy. 

Which is why, in January 2022, the Spanish government asked Renaud de Stephanis, a 48-year-old Spanish orca expert, to figure out a solution to the problem. De Stephanis, who has a grizzled beard, shaggy hair, and bronzed aging-surfer skin, has been studying this group of orcas since the 1990s. Last December, I flew to Gibraltar, crossed the border into Spain by foot, and drove west along the coast toward a ramshackle house perched upon a cliff above the strait to spend a week with him. 

HIS HOUSE IS difficult to pinpoint in the hills above Tarifa, a hippie kite-surfing town at the southernmost tip of mainland Europe. I arrive at the door after getting lost, and a 27-year-old marine-biology intern named Maggie cracks it open. De Stephanis isn’t home right now, she says. He’s at sea. “Be careful,” de Stephanis had warned a few days earlier on Facebook: The orcas are now in the strait. Maggie isn’t sure how long he’ll be. But I can wait for him here. 

From the top of the house I can make out the cliffs of the Moroccan coast. A procession of freight ships chugs between the Pillars of Hercules, two promontories that frame the entrance to the Atlantic Ocean: one on the European side, the other in North Africa. For ancient mariners, the two pillars were a warning: Advance no farther. They marked out the edges of the known world and the start of nothingness. According to classical mythology, the Strait of Gibraltar was Hercules’ handiwork — eight miles across at its tightest point. Why would Hercules make it so narrow? To stop sea monsters from coming up into the Mediterranean, wrote Diodorus Siculus, an ancient-Greek historian. The protector of mankind had built a bottleneck for blocking civilization off from the wild.

There are three interns, and they tell me they hardly ever see de Stephanis, despite living in his little house for many months. “He has mad-scientist vibes,” one of them tells me over tapas. Some days, de Stephanis remains in his bedroom morning to night, announcing “Today doesn’t exist.” Or he waits out bad weather and rough swells in his sleeping bag in the living room with an old movie — Gladiator is his favorite. But as soon as conditions are right, he slips out onto the strait again, searching for Gladis. 

Which is what he’s doing as I wait, passing the time trying to decipher a Spanish translation of Moby Dick I find on a shelf in his office, beside crossbow darts used for extracting whale biopsies. That evening, as de Stephanis steps through the door just in time for spaghetti and meatballs, I remember I’d read he was an ex-rugby player — his cetacean obsession had followed a short professional career, and he still has the physique of a feared enforcer. His wet blue eyes are a little bloodshot. They appear to intimidate the interns, who were chattering happily until the moment he walked in. 

Nobody has died. But sailors worry it’s just a matter of time.

After dinner, de Stephanis kindles a log fire. He tells me about changing ancient seafaring routes, passages sailors had followed since before the ancient Romans. A few months earlier, he had announced that boats should avoid the deep waters in the middle of the strait where the orcas usually strike. Sailors obeyed, and today most vessels in the area hug the coast. Diverting boats seems to delight him. He stands up and starts pacing the living room. “Super fun,” he says. “I like it.” 

THE MORNING OF Jan. 10, 2023, was cloudy and calm on the Strait of Gibraltar. De Stephanis and his team of five stepped into an inflatable Zodiac and sped out of Tarifa harbor in the direction of Morocco, past the statue of Christ at the port’s entrance. It was the first day of their government-funded project to understand how to deter the killer whales. First, though, the crew had to check if they were even around.  

It was in these waters that once swam the first killer whales to ever be described in writing. “The killer whale, a creature that is the enemy of the other species and the appearance of which can be represented by no other description except that of an enormous mass of flesh with savage teeth,” wrote Pliny the Elder in A.D. 77, “charge[s] and pierce[s] other whales like warships ramming.” But in the winter, killer whales are less common in the Strait of Gibraltar. They often follow the bluefin tuna into the Atlantic, and de Stephanis didn’t expect to see them. Standing on the blow-up tube on the side of the boat, he scanned the horizon. He was not ready to begin any experiments. As far as he knew, the orcas never went for inflatable boats. 

Once in the deep water, though, two killer whales started approaching them quickly from behind. Their black-and-white faces were rhythmically emerging from the water as they swam, their eyes fixed on the boat. The pair got closer and closer, until one lifted the Zodiac out of the water with a gentle tap of its nose. It happened again. Everybody on the boat was knocked toward the bow. De Stephanis’ heart was pounding. He worried the orcas would destroy the boat on their first day of work. “I wasn’t scared,” he tells me with a smirk. “OK, I was fucking scared.” 

The killer whales played with the blow-up craft for about an hour. Sebastian Lang, a German photographer who lives in Tarifa, had come aboard for the ride. A few years earlier, Lang had been snorkeling at a nearby spot with pilot whales, long black cetaceans with bulbous foreheads that are the only animals Iberian orcas appear to fear. One of them took Lang’s arm in its mouth and swam down to the depths, delivering him back to the surface just before he passed out. As the orcas rammed the fragile inflatable, Lang zoned out again, but this time with a feeling of awe. “My brain shut off,” he tells me. “I wanted to look at them for hours and hours.”  

He tried out a pinger that played a high-pitched sound, which some sailors say repels the whales, and found it seemed to attract them instead. He played recordings of pilot whale calls — but he worried they would drive the orcas out of the strait altogether, so he stopped. He dragged decoy rudders behind the boat to see which designs they preferred, and he deployed a prototype deterrent rudder covered with soft spikes. It appeared to be effective. What he failed to prove, though, was the reason for the behavior — although what conclusive evidence of that would look like is hard to imagine. Still, de Stephanis has a theory. 

ON A BRIGHT and clear day a few months later, de Stephanis was approached by a group of orcas, including one with a deep wound gouged into his dorsal fin. It was Gladis Black. De Stephanis shows me underwater video he had taken with a GoPro attached to a stick. Beneath the boat, Gladis Black rotates into a vertical position, and presses and rubs the pointed black tip of his face against the rudder. His face and white chin are covered with scratches and scars.

Was he seeking revenge? This theory, it seemed, had originated with Alfredo López, an animal biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. Lòpez believes that one of the orcas could have been harmed, perhaps by a fishing line, and that the behavior might be a response to injury. “Complete bullshit,” says de Stephanis, who has known Lòpez since 1999 through attending whale conferences, and has little respect for him. “I call him ‘the expert,’” he says with a mocking smile. “He’s no friend of mine.” He adds: “He knows I know that he has never seen an orca.” 

It’s worth pointing out here that de Stephanis has attracted controversy, too. He has studied the orcas at Loro Parque, Spain’s version of SeaWorld, which still keeps four animals in captivity. The conservation foundation connected to the park has also given him grant money. De Stephanis says he opposes keeping orcas in captivity: We shouldn’t capture any more, he tells me — but as long as they are there, they can be useful to biologists.

Gonzàlez tells me she doesn’t care what de Stephanis thinks of Lòpez’s work. Still, team Lòpez and team de Stephanis battle it out in Facebook comments — and just as the attacks have become a craze among the orcas, Lòpez’s trauma-and-revenge hypothesis quickly became a meme among human onlookers. “Killer whales orchestrating revenge attacks on boats,” wrote the New York Post in 2020. “Revenge of the orcas?” asked the Washington Post in May 2023.

Every orca researcher I speak to agrees that Lòpez’s hypothesis is implausible. Even Drion, whose experience with the orcas felt like an attack, compares the whales to a powerful dog playing rough with a small child. It feels scary, and it’s certainly dangerous — but to the dog, it’s just a game. 

If they wanted to sink the boat, they’d jump on it and the game is over.

“If they really wanted to sink the boat,” Drion tells me, “they would just jump on it and the game is over.”

But the attacks could still be a result of how humans have harmed killer whales, de Stephanis says. In 2010, overfishing decimated the bluefin tuna population. During that period, the orcas birthed fewer calves. With fewer siblings to play with, de Stephanis wonders, were boisterous juveniles choosing boats as their playmates instead? OK — but then why are the adults joining in? That’s not so surprising, he tells me. Humans aren’t so different. His daughter is trying to teach him TikTok dances. 

Whether or not that story holds water, de Stephanis is convinced Lòpez’s trauma-and-revenge idea is wrong. The behavior is play through and through. But as de Stephanis fills the house with chaos, shouting and blasting Independence Day at 8 a.m., I can’t shake the idea that this interpretation, that it’s nothing but horseplay, overlaps almost too neatly with what he himself seems to share with the orcas. 

 STILL, DE STEPHANIS is probably right. If the orcas do intend to destroy boats and harm people on them, they could do that easily by smashing holes in the hull — but they never do. They are obsessed only with the rudder. And the idea that the behavior developed in reaction to an injury from a fishing line, or even because of overfishing, is dubious, because the orcas very rarely, to our knowledge, attack fishing boats — for unclear reasons. More than that, though, is the fact that every killer whale scientist I speak to repeats the same thing: These creatures just don’t carry vendettas.

Orcas have “one of the most elaborated brains on the planet,” says Lori Marino, a neuroscientist, expert in whale behavior, and founder and president of the Whale Sanctuary Project. An orca’s cerebral cortex is more convoluted, more intricately folded, than a human’s — which gives them an extraordinary ability to learn, remember, think, and feel. Killer whales lead a rich emotional life, and share some complex feelings with humans, Marino says. They experience empathy, they mourn their dead, and they are probably smart enough to understand why an individual might want to harm another in vengeance — to impart a lesson, for example, or to discourage future attacks. Which makes it even more remarkable that, in the wild, orcas never do. 

In the 1960s and 1970s, when orcas in the northeastern Pacific were repeatedly terrorized by boats that kidnapped their relatives and put them into captivity, they never attacked vessels of any kind. Unlike highly intelligent terrestrial mammals, such as chimps, gorillas, or humans, there is very little evidence that wild killer whales have ever sought revenge. (Although orcas in captivity have killed trainers, those animals were probably psychologically disturbed by their environment, says Marino.) When a chimpanzee steals food, the victim often retaliates. An aggrieved macaque will settle scores, sometimes attacking a family member of the perpetrator. But orcas don’t do that. “They have adapted in a way that eliminates the need for aggression,” says Deborah Giles, a killer whale researcher at the University of Washington.  

What looks like revenge against humans, Whitehead says, is a behavior that may be a kind of culture, a way this community of orcas now strengthens its group identity. Orca obsessions can quickly turn into collective fads. Take their eating habits. Most wild animals are not fussy gourmands. But the orcas that live in the seas around Antarctica eat tiny penguins, and when they kill them, they discard everything other than the breast muscles. Orcas that eat other whales usually enjoy only the lips and the tongue and leave the rest to wash up or rot. Each community of killer whales speaks in its own dialect, and off the coast of Australia, in a place called Shark Bay, orcas adorn their noses with ornamental sponges. In the 1980s, the salmon-eating orcas of the northeastern Pacific fashioned hats from the carcasses of their prey. They wore them all summer.

Outside of humans, the complexity and stability of these cultural forms is unparalleled. Boat ramming is just the latest of these practices. But when we, another eminent cultural animal, seek to understand what killer whales are up to, we can’t help but see them through the pinhole of our own cultural practices and group dynamics. We look beneath the surface with ape eyes, and we see territoriality and retaliation where we should see cultural behaviors that have little to do with land-based violence — which results in orcas with apelike vendettas going viral. 

FOR MOST OF my stay with de Stephanis, the ocean is too rough to go out upon. On my last day, though, there’s a window of calm, and he wants to show me the orcas before I leave. I offer to drive us to the port in my rental car. He thinks I’ll probably drive too slowly, and bombs down the hill on his motorbike. At the port, we meet a man named Salva, who will control the boat while de Stephanis scans the surface for fins. We hop onto the Zodiac, motor past the Jesus statue and out into the strait, and squint into the horizon until our faces hurt. 

 We see hundreds of silvery dolphins breach and spin in the air. We see a pod of pilot whales and a languid sunfish drifting on the surface. We see a yacht in the distance between a stream of cargo ships, underway in deep water. The captain is resisting de Stephanis’ advice. “That could get him into trouble,” says de Stephanis. But the yacht will be lucky: The killer whales are nowhere to be seen. They are probably already hunting tuna in the open ocean. Perhaps, I think, they’ve abandoned their craze. Maybe they’ve even developed a new fixation. 

 I drive back to Gibraltar feeling a little deflated, and while I wait for my flight, I walk up the European Pillar of Hercules. Near the top, a sign warns me about macaques, the only wild monkeys that live on the continent, which “may behave aggressively.” For a few minutes, I watch them lounging peacefully in the sun, then turn around and fly home. 

 But two months later, the orcas, fresh from the open seas, swim back into the Strait of Gibraltar. At dusk on Feb. 4, their fad apparently now their tradition, a way of life, five individuals begin to ram the back of a large sailing boat, in rough seas six miles off the coast of Tangiers. “We saw them heading straight for us,” says the French captain. “Aggressive and lively and very fast.” 

Sean Combs and Employee Bound and Raped Woman, Sold Assault Film 'as Pornography,' Lawsuit Says

Sean combs' history of controversies and allegations, kim porter's 'memoir' is number one on amazon. its 'author' can't say it's real, as death rate surges, texas asks supreme court to let it keep denying care to pregnant women, t.i., tiny win whopping $71 million award at omg girlz trial, most popular, 50 cent sets diddy abuse allegations docuseries at netflix: 'it's a complex narrative spanning decades' (exclusive), al b. sure calls for an investigation into death of diddy’s ex kim porter , archaeologists solve mystery behind black tombstone found in jamestown carrying an english knight, suge knight claims jay-z, dr. dre, and other industry people were privy to diddy's alleged criminal activity, you might also like, music industry moves: snoop dogg and death row records sign with reservoir; edgar barrera re-ups with sony latin publishing, wwd time capsule: how alessandro michele’s ‘expressive freedom’ brought gucci back, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, 2024 fall festival movie sales so far: pamela anderson drama ‘the last showgirl’ lands at roadside attractions, pistons owner tom gores to acquire 27% of nfl’s chargers.

Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2024 Rolling Stone, LLC. All rights reserved.

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.

On supporting science journalism

If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing . By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.

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.

share this!

May 24, 2023

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked

trusted source

written by researcher(s)

Why are killer whales attacking boats? Expert Q&A

by Luke Rendell, The Conversation

Orcas living off Europe's Iberian coast recently struck and sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar. Scientists suspect that this is the third vessel this subpopulation of killer whales has capsized since May 2020, when a female orca believed to be the originator of this behavior suffered a traumatic encounter with a boat.

In most reported cases, orcas are biting, bending and breaking off the rudders of sailboats. So how did they learn to imitate this behavior—and why? We asked Dr. Luke Rendell, who researches learning, behavior and communication among marine mammals at the University of St Andrews.

Why do you think orcas appear to be attacking boats off the Iberian coast?

Any answer that I (or anyone else, really) give to this question is speculation—we just don't know enough about killer whale motivations to be certain. The puzzle for biologists is to understand how this behavior developed.

The lack of obvious fitness-enhancing rewards (like food, for example) means this is unlikely to have evolved because it enabled the whales to better survive in their environment. That is what we would call an adaptive trait: it confers a direct evolutionary benefit by helping the animal find food, mate, or successfully raise offspring.

But I can say what this behavior looks like. There are multiple accounts of single and groups of orcas developing idiosyncratic and not obviously adaptive habits. These range from one group engaging in what seemed like a short-term fad of carrying dead salmon on their heads, to another vocally mimicking sea lions (there may be an adaptive outcome to convincing sea lions that you are a sea lion too, not a voracious predator, but there's no evidence of this occurring).

There are other kinds of behavior that do appear to bring rewards—for example, captive orcas learning to regurgitate fish to use as bait for gulls, which they apparently prefer to eat over the fish. But the origin and spread of these boat attacks currently fits very well with the characterization of a temporary fad, and it remains to be seen how long it persists.

If instead there is an adaptive explanation, my hunch is it has to do with curiosity sometimes leading to important innovations around food sources, which can then be shared.

How do you suspect this behavior is being transmitted among killer whales in the region?

This behavior probably started with individual orcas, but would appear to spread through social learning. We recently published a paper on a similar fad-like behavior in bottlenose dolphins , where we identified the dolphin that promoted a tail-walking behavior it had acquired during a temporary period of captivity.

This is pretty similar to the account of an academic journal on the recent yacht sinking, in that a specific individual was identified as the potential source. This orca was prompted to engage in the behavior due to a past trauma—perhaps being struck by a boat rudder, according to the account.

The precise reason is very hard to know for sure, but we do know the behavior has spread through her group. And it's difficult to explain that dynamic without involving some kind of social learning—the spread of information.

Is there evidence of killer whales behaving this way in the past?

I have experienced orcas swimming very close to our boat in the waters near St Vincent, in the eastern Caribbean, during a research survey. Our vessel, like those involved in these interactions, was about the size of a large whale (a humpback, for instance). Maybe they were investigating us, but it never escalated to any kind of physical interaction.

My impression was that they were interested in the boat's propeller, and the currents it created—they came so close on one occasion that we had to take the engine out of gear to prevent an injury. So, approaching boats is not novel. Damaging them in such a determined way is, however, not something I have ever heard orcas do before.

It is, of course, known to happen in other species—notably sperm whales , giving rise to the story of Moby Dick: a combination of accounts of a white whale off the South American coast dubbed "Mocha Dick," and the account of the whaler Essex, sunk by a large sperm whale in equatorial waters.

The subpopulation of orcas responsible for these attacks is critically endangered. Do you think the group's conservation status is relevant in some way?

I don't think it's particularly relevant to the origin and spread of the behavior, but it is highly relevant to how we should manage this population.

If these killer whales continue attacking boats, it will make protecting them harder. Not only does interacting with revolving propellers increase the risk of injury to these animals, it also threatens people—from the injuring of crews to the sinking of vessels—which will create political pressure for something to be done.

Of course, small vessel operators do not need to navigate the areas along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal where these interactions with orcas have been happening. Preventing them from doing so would solve the problem—but for many boat operators and owners, this is their shortest route, while heading offshore makes for riskier passages. A loss of tourism revenue if these vessels stop will add to pressure for a permanent solution.

It is possible that some will call for these orcas to be controlled, up to and including having them killed if they continue to threaten human life and livelihoods. This poses significant ethical questions about our relationship with these animals.

Should we, as the species that ultimately holds the greatest power, vacate small, vulnerable vessels from the orcas' habitat as part of a shifting relationship to the sea, which we know is deteriorating as a result of our actions? Or should we confer on ourselves the right to navigate as we please and control any nonhuman animals that impede it, up to and including culling them?

Historically, the latter view would almost certainly have prevailed, and perhaps it will here. But it is a question which society, rather than scientists, must answer, and it will be telling which way the relevant authorities ultimately turn.

Reports indicate a 'traumatised' victim of a boat collision initiated the behavior. Are notions of solidarity and self-defense among killer whales outlandish?

I regard this as plausible speculation. The authors of the recent paper cast it as one of a number of assumptions about how the behavior might have developed, with generally increased pressure on their habitat and the idea of natural curiosity as other options (the latter is what I think is most likely).

Notions of collective self-defense in cetaceans (aquatic mammals including whales, dolphins and porpoises) are far from outlandish. We have accounts of sperm whales rising to each other's defense when orcas attack, for example. Solidarity is a more subjective issue, and we don't have access to the internal mental states of these animals to really understand whether this is going on.

I can, however, point to a different cetacean: humpback whales apparently aid other species, notably seals, that are under attack from orcas. The scientist who led the description of this behavior, Robert Pitman , said he regards it as "inadvertent altruism" based on a simple rule of thumb : "When you hear a killer whale attack, go break it up."

These accounts raise interesting questions about the motivations behind orcas attacking boats that we cannot yet answer. It is not impossible that these orcas perceive their own common aggressor in us—but it is also entirely possible they have no such concept.

Provided by The Conversation

Explore further

Feedback to editors

High-energy-density cubic gauche nitrogen successfully synthesized at atmospheric pressure

3 hours ago

Ryugu samples call into question previous ideas about the formation of carbon-rich asteroids

Forest loss forces langur species to interbreed, study shows

4 hours ago

Research team succeeds in ultra-fast switching of tiny light sources

Bioengineers and chemists design fluorescent 3D-printed structures with potential medical applications

Scientists use drones to track white sharks along California beaches

From branches to loops: The physics of transport networks in nature

5 hours ago

Enhancing hurricane forecasts: Simulations reveal reducing estimates of atmospheric friction improves storm predictions

Nonlinear optical metasurface achieves electrically tunable third-harmonic generation

Seal species carries 'genetic scars' after being hunted to the edge of extinction, new research reveals

6 hours ago

Relevant PhysicsForums posts

Here comes covid-19 version ba.2, ba.4, ba.5,....

19 hours ago

Aging Effects for Hearts in Microgravity

Sep 25, 2024

Using Destructive Interference to Treat Tinnitus

Are you concerned about toxic chemicals in plastic food packaging.

Sep 24, 2024

Why does a series of pulses generate a pitch?

Sep 19, 2024

Therapeutic Interfering Particle

Sep 18, 2024

More from Biology and Medical

Related Stories

Researchers puzzled by group of 'crazy' killer whales attacking boats near Spain

Sep 14, 2020

Humpback whales saving other species from orcas found to be common and maybe altruistic

Aug 10, 2016

Video footage provides first detailed observation of orcas hunting white sharks in South Africa

Oct 4, 2022

Killer whales teach each other how to steal fish from human fisheries

Feb 2, 2022

Biologist: Orca attacks on gray whales up in California bay

Apr 30, 2017

Scientist: Breach dams to save orcas off Washington state

Oct 28, 2016

Recommended for you

Marine debris removal benefits Hawaiian monk seals and ecosystems

Wall lizards shed light on how animals prevent harm in territorial disputes

7 hours ago

Warming climates quicken aging-related mortality in mosquitoes, study finds

Let us know if there is a problem with our content.

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Phys.org in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

DIVE Magazine

Scuba Diving Luxury Travel Magazine

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.

Related stories

• Life Changing: Todd Thimios’ stunning Norway orca photography
• 57-year-old orca held captive in Florida aquarium to be released
• Orca adopts – or kidnaps – pilot whale calf
• Stunning footage of orcas killing great whites
• Spate of great white deaths confirm predation by orcas

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

• Latest Posts

• Orca attacking adult whale shark to eat its liver - 3 August 2023
• ‘The Deepest Breath’ freediving documentary on Netflixnow - 28 July 2023
• Freediver bitten by oceanic whitetip shark - 27 July 2023

FOLLOW DIVE

Want to access DIVE on your tablet or smartphone? Press the Apple, Android or PC/Mac image below to download the app for your device

More from DIVE

• Get our our free newsletter
• Advertise with DIVE Magazine
• Terms & Conditions
• Privacy Policy

• Your Profile
• Your Subscriptions
• Your Business
• Support Local News
• Payment History
• Sign up for Daily Headlines
• Sign up for Notifications

'It's crazy': B.C. whale protection unit sees spike in whale strikes, drone violations

• Share by Email
• Share on Facebook
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share via Text Message

A whale protection unit in B.C. has had a very busy season covering a vast area of the province responding to an increase in whale strikes. 

Dan Vo, a field supervisor with Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Whale Protection Unit, based out of Annacis Island, spoke with Glacier Media about what the two teams are seeing on the water. 

“We are so busy,” he says. “We are trying to do our best but it seems like we need more officers.”

Vo says there are so many incidents with the public and whales that they aren’t able to deal with all of the reports in a timely fashion. Their investigations are also lengthy due to interviewing all the witnesses and collecting evidence. 

"Every case is different. We have to analyze it from top to bottom, to determine if people intended to put themselves in that situation or they just happen to be on top of the water,” says Vo.

When it comes to the number of complaints they've received about people getting too close or endangering whales, Vo says the number of occurrences is comparable to the last three years.

"I think we’ve got the same amount of calls and there's many … it's all over from the west coast of Vancouver Island all around Vancouver Island, Victoria, the Lower Mainland, all the way up to Sechelt along the Sunshine Coast, all the way to Campbell River, and extends further to Johnstone Strait up to Port Hardy,” he says.

This year alone he believes they’re investigating nearly 1,000 files and he expects more than 600 of them will result in violations. 

The Whale Protection Unit has responded to more vessels striking whales this year, he tells Glacier Media.

“There’s a lot more this year, it’s crazy,” he says. “Probably like a dozen cases.” 

If someone hits or makes contact with a whale, they have to report it to Fisheries and Oceans Canada right away, as part of the Marine Mammal Regulations .

“We deal with a lot of incidents and I’ve been involved in a couple of whale entanglements,” says Vo.

Approaching marine mammals too quickly, coming too close or making too much noise can disturb, stress or even harm marine mammals. 

Increasing issues with drones

Vo explains how people using drones near whales has been the number one complaint they’ve received this year.

"It's quite a hot topic, and it has always been, for the last few years... the drone is so cheap nowadays. You can get... $99 drones and you can fly anywhere,” he says. 

A B.C. film company was fined for flying a drone  too close to orcas. Video from the Aug. 13, 2021, drone recording was sent to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. A total fine of $30,000 was levied against a Vancouver company and its drone operator. 

After the story was published, a Glacier Media reader reached out to the reporter asking if a personal drone video his son filmed off Vancouver Island was illegal. 

Vo watched the video and confirmed it was in violation. 

Under the Marine Mammal Regulations, it is illegal to approach marine mammals with an aerial drone at an altitude below 1,000 feet (about 304 metres) and within a half nautical mile (about 926 metres). 

“Drones are known to cause some behaviour changes in whales. It could affect their feeding and their socializing,” he says. 

‘Ignorance’ towards whale regulations

Researchers and scientists have determined what is the safest distance people need to be from whales.

A minimum distance of 400 metres from all killer whales in southern B.C. coastal waters between Campbell River and just north of Ucluelet is required. A distance of 200 metres is required for killer whales in B.C. and the Pacific Ocean. 

"We have a beautiful coastline with so many activities happening and now the whales are coming back, especially the humpback,” says Vo.

The southern resident killer whales, which are endangered with approximately only 73 whales remaining, are coming back to B.C. waters.

“They're showing up all year round now; not like it used to be, so when you're in transit pay more attention,” he says. 

Recently, Vo has investigated claims of commercial whale-watching vessels, kayakers and people swimming too close to whales. 

“We sill see a lot of ignorance,” he says. “People know by now that they’re not supposed to get too close to the whales.”

He hears from people that they get excited and want to take a photo of their once-in-a-lifetime experience. 

“They totally forget about the safety, the regulations and they just want to come in and take a picture,” says Vo.

That whale could breach at any moment and it would put people at risk if they’re too close, he says.

“It’s exciting to see but they are wild animals and they have teeth that are like 19,000 pounds per square inch bite force and they can rip a great white shark's belly open easily.” 

Vo hopes people will educate themselves on whales and always give them lots of space to be on their own. 

“Every year, we try to do education and outreach, we try to get out there as much as possible to raise awareness,” he says. “I guess it takes time and hopefully people pay more attention.” 

• Oldest Newest

This has been shared 0 times

Featured Flyer

• Film and TV

To make sure you never miss out on your favourite NEW stories , we're happy to send you some reminders

Click ' OK ' then ' Allow ' to enable notifications

Horrific final moments of SeaWorld trainer before killer whale 'tore organs'

Seaworld trainer alexis martínez had been working with keto the orca in 2009 when the killer whale attacked and killed him.

Kit Roberts

A SeaWorld trainer was brutally killed by a captive orca, suffering horrific injuries during the attack.

The orca was called Keto, a whale who was born in captivity and had never been released out into the wild .

Trainer Alexis Martínez had been working with orcas for several years prior to the incident and was a highly experienced handler.

But while training for a series of Christmas shows in December 2009, he noticed that something had changed in the orca's behaviour.

Martínez had been one of several trainers who were working with Keto that day, and had been performing an underwater routine.

Keto had not responded properly to the usual training mechanisms used with the whales.

This meant that another trainer had to intervene in the routine in an effort to save Martínez.

However this proved to be ineffective and Keto used the tip of his snout to pin Martínez to the floor of the pool.

Other trainers had desperately tried to remedy the situation and regain control over the orca.

Things seems to look up for a moment when Keto returned to the surface of the pool to breathe.

But the whale descended back down to the bottom of the pool where Martínez was.

Eventually trainers were able to use a net to separate the orca from Martínez, allowing them to finally retrieve his body from the tank.

Martínez was killed in the attack, sustaining multiple injuries .

A report into the cause of death said that he 'died due to grave injuries sustained by an orca attack, including multiple compression fractures, tears to vital organs, and the bite marks of the animal on his body'.

Martínez is one of four people who are recorded as having been killed by orcas in captivity.

Keto was only involved in the death of one person, but one orca was involved in the deaths of three people.

This was Tilikum, a bull orca who was the subject of the Netflix documentary Blackfish.

Another of the four people to have been killed was trainer Dawn Brancheau who was killed during a live performance .

John Hargrove, a senior trainer at SeaWorld, said: "We'll never know why Tilikum made that choice to grab Dawn and pull her into the pool.

"He had a great relationship with her, and she had a great relationship with him. I do believe that he loved her, and I know that she loved him."

No fatal attacks on humans have been recorded by wild orcas.

Topics:  News , World News , US News , Animal Cruelty , Animals

Kit joined UNILAD in 2023 as a community journalist. They have previously worked for StokeonTrentLive, the Daily Mirror, and the Daily Star.

• Killer whales attack each other at SeaWorld and 'blood soaks water' as horrified guests watch
• Shocking moment SeaWorld killer whale drags trainer underwater and holds him there for 15 minutes
• Horrifying moment huge orca leaped out of the water body-slamming SeaWorld trainer
• Deadly history behind orca which dragged SeaWorld trainer into water before killing her

Choose your content:

Gross reason why some public toilets have U-shaped seats

If you've ever wondered the difference between public toilets, this might leave you a bit grossed out.

Doctors reveal seven simple ways to stop constipation in the morning

Feeling bloated and sluggish could soon be a thing of the past.

First person to die in 'suicide pod' left a recording explaining why she did it

The sarco pod's first user explained why she decided to end her life earlier this week..

Sydney Sweeney's dad and grandpa had to walk out after watching her in X-rated role

The actor's family found some of her euphoria scenes a bit too intimate to watch.

Quick Links

Lucky escape for fisherman after boat hit by whale off Mid North Coast

A fisherman has had a lucky escape off Grassy Head after a whale struck his boat on Sunday, September 22.

Subscribe now for unlimited access .

Login or signup to continue reading

Volunteers from Marine Rescue Trial Bay assisted the fisherman after his stationary vessel was damaged by the whale.

Marine Rescue NSW Inspector Rodney Page said the call for assistance came in just after 7.30am on Sunday.

"Marine Rescue Trial Bay volunteer radio operators received a call from a fisherman located off Grassy Head," he said.

"The man's stationary fishing vessel had been hit by a whale, causing damage to the bow of the boat and disabling the fuel supply.

"A volunteer crew on board Trial Bay 30 were deployed to assist and safely towed the vessel back to a boat ramp at South West Rocks," Insp Page said.

Marine Rescue NSW reminds boaters to take extra caution during whale migration season.

When whales are present, boaters are not to come within 100 metres of a whale, or 300 metres of a whale and calf.

"If a whale does surface near your vessel it is important that you cut your motors and slow down to a safe speed," Insp Page said.

Marine Rescue NSW is a volunteer based not-for-profit professional organisation dedicated to keeping boaters safe on the water and supporting local communities.

Advertisement

Get the latest Port Macquarie news in your inbox

Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.

We care about the protection of your data. Read our Privacy Policy .

Home → Science → Archaeology

AI Helps Uncover Hundreds of New Nazca Lines, Including Knife-Wielding Killer Whale

Artificial intelligence has revealed over 300 previously undiscovered geoglyphs in Peru's Nazca Desert.

For over a century, archaeologists have scoured Peru’s Nazca Desert looking for enigmatic geoglyphs — vast figures that can only be fully appreciated from above. Some of these aerial artworks can span kilometers. However, despite their efforts, some of these designs remained elusive, hidden beneath centuries of natural erosion. Now, an AI-powered model has significantly accelerated the discovery process.

The researchers, led by Masato Sakai from Yamagata University in Japan, have discovered 303 new geoglyphs in the Nazca region by harnessing the pattern recognition power of AI. These ancient carvings, etched into the earth over 2,000 years ago, include everything from “decapitated heads” to a knife-wielding killer whale, providing new insight into the people of the Nazca culture.

AI Brings Archaeology to a New Frontier

Sakai and colleagues trained their AI to spot the subtle lines of these ancient figures in satellite images. Their system learned by analyzing a small dataset of known geoglyphs and then generated a map of probable locations for new figures. After cross-referencing the results and conducting field inspections, the team confirmed 303 new geoglyphs. Among them were humanoid figures, animals, and abstract shapes. Most of these newly found glyphs are barely visible to the naked eye, but the AI was able to find the original carvings in the eroded lines.

One of the most startling discoveries was a 72-foot-long orca brandishing a knife. “On some pottery from the Nazca period, there are scenes depicting orcas with knives cutting off human heads,” Sakai explained. This, he says, suggests that the killer whale might have been seen as a symbol of human sacrifice.

The new findings help differentiate between two distinct types of Nazca Lines: the relief-type geoglyphs, which are smaller and closer to ancient trails, and the larger, line-type figures. According to the study, 82% of relief-type geoglyphs depict humans or domesticated animals, like llamas. Meanwhile, 64% of the larger line-type geoglyphs showcase wild animals such as birds and whales. The proximity of relief-type figures to trails suggests they were meant to be seen by travelers, perhaps as part of small-group rituals.

Larger geoglyphs, on the other hand, are evenly spaced and more likely to have been used in community-wide ceremonies. These lines cover much greater distances and may have symbolized large-scale social or religious practices in the region.

Nazca Art and Culture

Glyph style differences hint at a complex social structure in Nazca culture. Some geoglyphs would have served public, ritualistic purposes and others perhaps shared stories or messages along quieter, everyday routes.

However, many mysteries remain surrounding these geoglyphs and the people who first etched them. No written records exist, so archaeologists rely on artifacts, architecture, and these puzzling geoglyphs to piece together their history.

We know that the Nazca culture thrived from around 100 BCE to 800 CE, in a harsh desert environment where survival was a daily challenge. To adapt, they had to get creative. The Nazca developed “ puquios ” — a system of underground aqueducts. These allowed them to bring water from distant sources to irrigate their fields year-round. Some puquios are still functional today.

Yet, despite their artistic and engineering achievements, the Nazca eventually collapsed. Was it due to environmental factors, such as prolonged drought, or internal conflicts? These Nazca lines are among the few things left that may help archaeologists tell these ancient people’s stories.

However, today, the Nazca Lines face new threats. Researchers believe that many of these figures, particularly the smaller ones, are in danger of disappearing due to agricultural expansion and urban development, as well as illegal mining and vandalism. “Speed is crucial because many geoglyphs lie on the cusp of erasure,” said David Beresford-Jones from the University of Cambridge.

AI: A Game-Changer for Archaeology

This study is just a recent example of the growing role of AI in archaeology, especially in the field of aerial imaging. The AI model used for this research was able to process massive amounts of data, identifying potential glyphs 50 times faster than a human expert could. IBM’s geospatial platform, PAIRS, was used for cleaning the satellite images before the AI split the Nazca Desert into grids, marking high-probability areas for further inspection.

While AI has been instrumental in uncovering hundreds of new geoglyphs, experts caution that the technology is still best suited for finding larger, clearer images— the “low-hanging fruit,” as the Japanese researchers described it. Nonetheless, the discovery of these figures has nearly doubled the number of known Nazca Lines in just a matter of months. All the other Nazca lines were identified across a hundred years.

The researchers now face the challenge of investigating the more than 1,000 additional candidate sites identified by the AI. If the past is any indication, there may be many more hidden figures waiting to be uncovered, promising even deeper insights into the ancient rituals and artistic practices of the Nazca culture.

These findings follow a growing trend of applying advanced technologies like machine learning, satellite imagery, and geospatial analysis to uncover lost civilizations. From ancient cities hidden beneath the Amazon rainforest to submerged landscapes in Europe, AI is proving to be a powerful tool in expanding our understanding of human history.

The new study and its findings were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

Related Posts

• Like fossils: half a century of plastics are buried in layers of sediment
• The UK may soon get its first cryogenic energy battery
• Are party animals born this way?
• Scientists discover a new way mountains are formed – from ‘mantle waves’ inside the Earth

Recent news

The Universe’s Structure May Be ‘Smoother’ Than Expected, Raising Big Questions for the Standard Model of Cosmology

From Mafia Squirrels to Smooching Owlets: ‘Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards’ Reveals Hilarious Animal Photos

Frozen in Time: 32,000-Year-Old Woolly Rhino Found With Skin, Fur, and Organs Intact

• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
• How we review products

© 2007-2023 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

• Science News
• Environment
• Natural Sciences
• Matter and Energy
• Quantum Mechanics
• Thermodynamics
• Periodic Table
• Applied Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Biochemistry
• Microbiology
• Plants and Fungi
• Planet Earth
• Earth Dynamics
• Rocks and Minerals
• Invertebrates
• Conservation
• Animal facts
• Climate change
• Weather and atmosphere
• Diseases and Conditions
• Mind and Brain
• Food and Nutrition
• Anthropology
• Archaeology
• The Solar System
• Asteroids, meteors & comets
• Astrophysics
• Exoplanets & Alien Life
• Spaceflight and Exploration
• Computer Science & IT
• Engineering
• Sustainability
• Renewable Energy
• Green Living
• Editorial policy
• Privacy Policy