Last Thursday, the sailing ship Mustique was sailing the waters of Tarifa towards Gibraltar when, late at night, a group of killer whales caught up with him and rammed the ship. They broke the rudder with blows and created a crack in the stern, through which water began to flow, which accumulated up to six inches inside the boat. Fortunately, the four crew members were rescued without problems by the Marine Rescue Service, who arrived at the scene by ship and helicopter, and were also able to tow the sailboat to port facilities.

The case was by no means an isolated case. “Since 2020, we have been seeing strange orca behavior in the area. They approach the boats and physically touch them, sometimes resulting in breakage, damage and breakage,” explains Alfredo López, Cemma biologist and member of the Atlantic Killer Whale Task Force (GTOA). the animals have already sunk three boats. Responsible for this are the Iberian killer whales, a “critically endangered” species with only 35 specimens.

According to data collected by the GTOA, since 2020, there have been 744 sightings of killer whales with boats. from the coast of North Africa to French Brittany. Of these, 239 were sightings from afar, and 505 were direct interactions, with killer whales reacting to the presence of boats. “Of course, these are not attacks. In some cases, this is an interaction without physical contact; in other cases, it is an interaction with physical contact, but without damage; and in other cases, these physical contacts cause damage that becomes serious,” says Lopez.

The GTOA estimates that between 2020 and 2022, killer whales touched one in every hundred ships passing through the area, and 20% of them are seriously damaged. The frequency of these interactions, according to his research, especially increased between 2020 and 2021, but there was no significant increase in 2022 because “they change with the season and locality.”

“We recorded information about all interactions between boats and killer whales around the world and found similar cases. But they were always very poorly described and seemed to be something punctual or random. Nothing like what we see here has ever happened so repeatedly. this is a unique case” Lopez says.

From their organization, they recommend avoiding night sailing and moving as close to shore as possible to avoid these encounters. But just in case, they have created a web page (https://www.orcaiberica.org/) and a mobile app where boaters can check all the collected data on the interaction of killer whales with boats. And they can see which “hot spots” are most likely.

two hypotheses

Lopez elaborates that killer whales, when they spot boats, first compete with them as if it were a speed race. Then they move closer and they begin to hit the boats and move the rudder with their heads, giving it blows which cause ships to change direction and cause breakdowns. However, investigators say they do not notice that they are doing this with “aggressive moods” or with a desire to sink the boat.

So far, yes, they do not know what this behavior is due to. But they are processing two hypotheses. The first one is that it self-induced behavior that animals themselves came up with and now repeat. An option that they were fine with at first because they noticed it was more common in juveniles, but which they all but ruled out when they saw some adults also do it.

Secondly, this killer whales have had a ‘traumatic situation’ in the past involving a boatwhich made them disgusted with them. Thus, now that they see the ship, they try to stop it in order to prevent this kind of behavior from harming them again.

“Orcas are predators, but they don’t show aggression towards people or anything other than food,” says Lopez. And adds: “Even if a crew member falls into the sea, nothing will happen. Killer whales passed by or looked at him. At the moment this has not happened, but there were divers, photographers and surfers who were very close to them and never had the slightest problem.

But that doesn’t stop sailors from being impressed when they see them arrive. “Most are scared, especially since they don’t know anything about killer whales.. movies like Shark, and they think the worst is coming. But this is ignorance. There are other sailors who have already encountered killer whales in other parts of the world and have a more natural or normalized view of them, even if they are hit by a boat, ”concludes the biologist.