orca whales sink yacht

Orcas Sink 50-Foot Yacht Off the Coast of Morocco

The vessel’s two passengers were evacuated onto an oil tanker in the Strait of Gibraltar. The incident marks the fifth vessel the mammals have sunk in recent years

Daily Correspondent

The boat-ramming orcas are back in action: Two people had to be rescued from a sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar after the black-and-white marine mammals damaged the vessel so badly it later sank, reporters Reuters ’ David Latona.

The incident occurred around 9 a.m. local time Sunday, some 14 miles north of Cape Spartel in northern Morocco. Passengers aboard the 50-foot Alboran Cognac felt blows to the yacht’s hull and saw that the rudder had been damaged. As water began leaking onto the ship, they contacted the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Tarifa, Spain, which directed them to prepare for an emergency rescue.

About an hour later, a nearby oil tanker picked up the two crew members, who were customers of Spain-based Alboran Charter , which owns the yacht, reports the Washington Post ’s Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff.

The boat took on more water and sank soon after. It’s not clear how many orcas targeted the vessel.

The sinking of the Alboran Cognac is the latest in a string of incidents involving orcas and ships in the Strait of Gibraltar. The highly intelligent, social marine mammals made headlines last spring , when they sank a Swiss yacht called Champagne off the coast of Spain. In November, they brought down another ship , a Polish sailing yacht called the Grazie Mamma .

But the animals’ unusual behavior goes back even further: Since 2020, mariners have reported 700 interactions between orcas and ships in the Strait of Gibraltar, per Reuters. The Alboran Cognac is the fifth vessel orcas have sunk in the last three years, reports Live Science ’s Harry Baker.

Most of the incidents have been recorded in the Strait of Gibraltar, a waterway linking the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The strait, which is bordered by Morocco to the south and by Spain to the north, is home to a distinct—and critically endangered —subpopulation of fewer than 50 orcas .

However, last June, orcas also rammed into a ship in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway, roughly 2,000 miles away from the Strait of Gibraltar. Scientists weren’t quite sure what to make of that incident, which raised the possibility that the destructive behavior was spreading to different groups of orcas.

In the meantime, authorities are urging mariners in the Strait of Gibraltar to exercise caution this summer. Spain’s Maritime Safety and Rescue Society recommends avoiding a large area between the Gulf of Cádiz and the Strait of Gibraltar; the agency also suggests that mariners sail as close to the coast as possible, especially from May to August, when orcas are more likely to be in the region.

If sailors do encounter orcas, the agency recommends they keep the vessel moving and head toward shallower waters. People onboard the ship should remain in the middle of the vessel and not approach the sides, where they may be at risk of falling overboard.

The agency also asked mariners to notify authorities of any orca encounters and, if possible, to take photographs of the creatures for identification.

Scientists remain puzzled by the orcas’ destructive behavior. A leading hypothesis is that a female nicknamed “White Gladis” started ramming into ships after having some sort of traumatic run-in with a vessel; she may also have been pregnant when she first started targeting ships. Since orcas are social creatures, other members of White Gladis’ group may have simply followed her lead and mimicked her actions.

“The idea of revenge is a great story, but there’s no evidence for it,” said Lori Marino , a neuroscientist and the founder and president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, to BBC Newsbeat ’s Shaun Dacosta last year.

Another possibility is that the orcas are curious about ships, or maybe, they’re just having fun.

“They’re probably socializing, yucking it up with each other about their adventures without realizing the terror they’re creating in their moments of joy,” said Andrew Trites , a marine mammal researcher at the University of British Columbia in Canada, to Business Insider ’s Erin Heger last summer.

From January to May 2024, the interactions recorded by the GT Orcas APP and @crewingservice were a total of 26. It is a 65% lower than the 2023 records and 40% less than the average. Interactions have been reduced since the wide distribution of the orcas. — Orca Ibérica GTOA (@Orca_Iberica) May 14, 2024

Orcas have also been known to temporarily exhibit other unusual behaviors, like placing dead salmon atop their heads. The boat-ramming behavior may be another, similarly short-lived fad that the Strait of Gibraltar orcas will eventually move on from.

And they may already be doing just that: Between January and May 2024, the number of reported interactions with orcas was 65 percent lower than during the same period in 2023 and 40 percent lower than the average for those months across 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group .

Whatever the orcas’ motivations, scientists have urged onlookers to avoid assigning human emotions to the animals’ behaviors. Though the boat-ramming killer whales have given rise to internet memes and merchandise that suggests they’re plotting an “ orca uprising ,” researchers argue that the marine mammals are not acting with malicious intent.

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Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.

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Breaking news, killer whales sink $128k yacht in ‘terrifying’ 2-hour mediterranean sea attack: ‘like watching wolves hunt’.

Orcas relentlessly battered a yacht in a “terrifying” two-hour attack Wednesday that didn’t end until the $128,680 vessel sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Robert Powell, 59, and his crew were just 22 hours into their 10-day trip from Vilamoura, Portugal, to Greece when the pod set its sights on the £100,000 — or $128,680 — sailing boat.

“To me, they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing. They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,” Powell, who was meant to be celebrating his birthday aboard the boat, told SWNS.

“Their sole intention was to sink the boat, and that was it.”

The five orcas circled the 39-foot sailing boat and took turns smashing it to bits around 8 p.m. in a coordinated assault Powell compared to the carnage of wolves.

The IT company owner said he felt the first hit on the bottom of the boat, named the Bonhomme William, and assumed they had run over a rock.

“Whilst I was looking around the boat to see if I could see anything — I was doing about 5 to 6 knots — it got hit again,” Powell recalled.

“On the second hit, I looked over the back of the boat, and I could see the dark shape of a killer whale in the water.”

The pod of five first focused on the rudder, rendering the sailboat unable to steer after about 15 hits.

That’s when the orcas separated and each concentrated on their own section of the boat’s exterior, including the keel and stern.

“They were circling. It was like watching wolves hunt,” Powell said.

“They were taking it in turns to come in — sometimes two would come in at the same time and hit it. So obviously pretty terrifying.”

It took an hour and a half until the hull finally buckled beneath the whales’ pressure and split, causing water to gush into the main living area of the Bonhomme William.

Though they were just two miles off the coast of Spain — and the crew radioed for help as soon as the attack began — it took two hours before help arrived.

A Spanish salvage vessel fortunately helped them abandon the stricken ship, minutes before it sunk 130 feet below the Mediterranean’s surface.

Powell — who lost his birthday trip and his ritzy boat — said he tried everything from dropping firecrackers in the water and turning off the engine to deter the attack, but the pod was determined.

“It was a very long attack, and it was really the violence of the attack that surprised me,” he said.

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The former boat owner believes the pod — which included two juveniles — could be the same group responsible for terrorizing other skippers in European waters in recent years.

“I have a feeling that this group are boat sinkers — I think they knew what they were doing, I’m sure of it,” Powell said.

In May, a pack of killer whales sank a 50-foot yacht in Moroccan waters after repeatedly slamming into the vessel.

Orcas also interfered with a sailing race last year when a boat traveling from the Netherlands to Italy had a 15-minute showdown with the mammals. The crew was forced to drop its sails and make a ruckus to repel them.

Some studies suggest orcas are targeting boats for fun.

“It’s only a matter of time before someone shoots one of these killer whales,” Powell ominously warned.

“The fight between man and beast is going to get worse. Luckily none of us were in the water or got hurt.

“And it’s a lottery as to whether they hit you or not.”

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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.

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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.

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Orcas sank a yacht off Spain — the latest in a slew of such 'attacks' in recent years

Scott Neuman

Killer whales are pictured during a storm in the fjord of Skjervoy in 2021 off the coast of northern Norway. Researchers say orcas are stepping up "attacks" on yachts along Europe's Iberian coast. Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Killer whales are pictured during a storm in the fjord of Skjervoy in 2021 off the coast of northern Norway. Researchers say orcas are stepping up "attacks" on yachts along Europe's Iberian coast.

The crew of a sinking yacht was rescued off the coast of Spain this week after a pod of orcas apparently rammed the vessel – the latest "attack" by the marine mammals in the area that has left scientists stumped, several boats at the bottom of the ocean and scores more damaged.

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

The encounter on Sunday between an unknown number of orcas, also known as "killer whales," and the 49-foot sailing yacht Alboran Cognac occurred on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar, the narrow passage linking the Atlantic and Mediterranean where the majority of such incidents have occurred in recent years.

The Alboran Cognac's crew said they felt sudden blows on the hull and that the boat began taking on water. They were rescued by a nearby oil tanker, but the sailboat, left to drift, later went down.

The sinking brings the number of vessels sunk – mostly sailing yachts – to at least five since 2020. Hundreds of less serious encounters resulting in broken rudders and other damage, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR late last year.

As NPR first reported in 2022, many scientists who study orca behavior believe these incidents — in which often one or more of the marine mammals knock off large chunks of a sailboat's rudder — are not meant as attacks, but merely represent playful behavior.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Catamaran Guru(@catamaranguru)

Some marine scientists have characterized these encounters over the years as a "fad," implying that the animals will eventually lose interest and return to more typical behavior.

The study co-authored by López Fernandez, for example, indicated two years ago that orcas were stepping up the frequency of their interactions with sailing vessels in and around the Strait of Gibraltar.

Some researchers think it's merely playful behavior

One hypothesis put forward by Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, a research group based in Spain, is that orcas like the feel of the water jet produced by a boat's propeller.

A picture taken on May 31, 2023, shows the rudder of a vessel damaged by killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar and taken for repairs at the Pecci Shipyards in Barbate, near Cadiz, southern Spain. Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A picture taken on May 31, 2023, shows the rudder of a vessel damaged by killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) while sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar and taken for repairs at the Pecci Shipyards in Barbate, near Cadiz, southern Spain.

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," de Stephanis told NPR in 2022. "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."

In one encounter last year, Werner Schaufelberger told the German publication Yacht that his vessel, Champagne, was approached by "two smaller and one larger orca" off Gibraltar.

"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," he said.

The Spanish coast guard rescued Schaufelberger and his crew, towing Champagne to the Spanish port of Barbate, but the vessel sank before reaching safety.

A worker cleans Champagne, a vessel that sank after an attack by orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar and was taken for repairs at the Pecci Shipyards in Barbate, near Cadiz, southern Spain, on May 31, 2023. Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A worker cleans Champagne, a vessel that sank after an attack by orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar and was taken for repairs at the Pecci Shipyards in Barbate, near Cadiz, southern Spain, on May 31, 2023.

The encounters could be a response to past trauma

López Fernandez believes that a female known as White Gladis, who leads the group of around 40 animals, may have had a traumatizing encounter with a boat or a fishing net. In an act of revenge, she is teaching her pod-mates how to carry out attacks with her encouragement, he believes.

"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 told Live Science .

It's an intriguing possibility, Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute , told NPR last year.

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," she said. "I don't think we can completely rule it out."

However, Shields said she remained skeptical of the "revenge" hypothesis. She said that despite humans having "given a lot of opportunities for orcas to respond to us in an aggressive manner," there are no other examples of them doing so.

Deborah Giles, the science and research director at Wild Orca, a conservation group based in Washington state, was also cautious about the hypothesis when NPR spoke to her last year. She pointed out that killer whale populations in waters off Washington "were highly targeted" in the past as a source for aquariums. She said seal bombs – small charges that fishers throw into the water in an effort to scare sea lions away from their nets – were dropped in their path while helicopters and boats herded them into coves.

"The pod never attacked boats after that," she said.

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.

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Orcas sink another yacht in relentless 45-minute attack

Pod of killer whales scuppered vessel in strait of gibraltar despite best efforts of search and rescue teams and the moroccan navy, article bookmarked.

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Killer whales have sunk yet another boat in southwestern Europe , marking the fourth such incident in the region in the last two years.

The latest attack saw a pod of orcas target a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar for about 45 minutes, Polish cruise company Morskie Mile said in a Facebook post on 31 October.

The boat’s operator said the relentless attack focused on the yacht’s steering fin and caused extensive damage and leakage.

“Despite attempts to bring the yacht to the port by the captain, crew and rescuers from the SAR (Search and Rescue), port tugs and the Moroccan Navy, the unit sunk near the entrance to the port of Tanger Med,” the company said, while adding that the crew was “safe, unharmed, and sound”.

The attack is the latest reported case of killer whales targetting boats in Gibraltar – a phenomenon that has intrigued animal behaviour scientists.

Cases of orcas harassing boats passing by in the Strait of Gibraltar, which runs between Spain and Morocco and connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, began being reported in 2020.

The strange behaviour has perplexed scientists, with some theorising that the killer whales may be teaching each other to attack boats passing by in the region.

Researchers have floated a number of theories to explain the behaviour of the aquatic mammals.

These explanations range from food scarcity and the disruptive resumption of post-pandemic nautical activities to playful interactions.

There have been documented cases of “play behaviour” among different orca populations as some killer whales in previous studies were shown to “harass” porpoises .

Researchers suspect these were likely orchestrated by orcas as a form of social play to bond, communicate or simply for fun among themselves, and that the behaviour would provide benefits such as improved group coordination and teamwork.

But scientists have also begun to investigate whether the Gibraltar attacks are linked to past trauma.

Whatever the orcas’ motivation, such incidents have highlighted the more widespread concerns of scientists around the impact of human nautical activity on intelligent marine mammals .

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Orcas sink another boat in Strait of Gibraltar off Morocco

For years, the region’s killer whales have been bumping, biting and, in some cases, sinking boats. But many scientists caution not to ascribe motive to the animals.

The orcas have done it again.

On Oct. 31, a pod of killer whales swarmed a Polish yacht sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar. For 45 minutes, the orcas hit the vessel’s rudder and damaged the boat, according to the company that operated it. Despite rescue efforts, the yacht never made it back to shore, sinking near the entrance of the Moroccan port of Tanger Med.

“The crew is safe, unharmed and sound,” the Polish tour company Morskie Mile wrote in a Facebook post describing the demise of its boat.

Since 2020, orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar and along the Iberian Peninsula have been bumping and biting boats — oftentimes, yachts — in dozens of incidents that have frightened mariners and confounded scientists.

A recent spate of killer whales sinking boats delighted online observers who anthropomorphize the marine mammals and hail them as working-class heroes.

Are the orcas really out to get us? What to know about recent attacks.

Fishing vessels and motorboats have all had their run-ins with orcas in the region, though sailboats appear to be the most popular target, according to a 2022 study . The tour agency Morskie Mile did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

No one is quite sure what is prompting the orcas to go after vessels — whether the whales are simply being playful, or had a bad run-in with a boat in the past, prompting the aggressive behavior.

Some scientists say the incidents should not be called “attacks” at all, since the whale’s motives are unknown. Perpetuating the idea that whales are out for revenge, they fear, may lead to retaliation by boaters.

“We urge the media and public to avoid projecting narratives onto these animals,” a group of more than 30 scientists wrote in an open letter this summer. “In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume they understand the animals’ motivations.”

What we do know is that orcas are highly intelligent marine mammals that appear to learn from one another. Usually, that learned behavior is a hunting strategy, such as corralling and eating massive blue whales .

Other times, it is something stranger, such as when orcas near Seattle were observed “wearing” dead salmon as hats. Orcas, it turns out, can be victims of cultural fads, too.

One other thing is clear: Killer whales normally don’t hurt people. And humans are a bigger threat to them than they are to us.

Getting entangled in fishing gear or struck by speeding boats is a threat for all whales. With perhaps fewer than 40 individuals left , the orca population off the coasts of Spain, Portugal and Morocco is considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

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Orcas Sink Fourth Boat Off Iberia, Unnerving Sailors

Orcas caused enough damage to sink a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar last week. A small pod has been slamming boats in recent years, worrying skippers charting routes closer to shore.

By Isabella Kwai

The yacht Grazie Mamma II carried its crew along the coastlines and archipelagos of the Mediterranean. Its last adventure was off the coast of Morocco last week, when it encountered a pod of orcas.

The marine animals slammed the yacht’s rudder for 45 minutes, causing major damage and a leak, according to Morskie Mile , the boat’s Polish operators. The crew escaped, and rescuers and the Moroccan Navy tried to tow the yacht to safety, but it sank near the port of Tanger Med, the operator said on its website.

The account of the sinking is adding to the worries of many sailors along the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where marine biologists are studying a puzzling phenomenon: Orcas are jostling and ramming boats in interactions that have disrupted dozens of voyages and caused at least four boats in the past two years to sink.

The largest of the dolphin family, orcas are playful apex predators that hunt sharks, whales and other prey but are generally amiable to humans in the wild . The orcas hunting in the Strait of Gibraltar are considered to be endangered , and researchers have noticed an upsurge of unusual behavior since 2020: A small group of the marine animals have been battering boats in the busy routes around Portugal, Spain and Morocco.

While most interactions occur in the waters of southwestern Europe and North Africa, an orca also reportedly rammed a yacht some 2,000 miles north off the coast of Scotland, according to The Guardian.

“Orcas are complex, intelligent, highly social,” Erich Hoyt, a research fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation and author of “Orca: The Whale Called Killer,” said. “We’re still at the early stages of trying to understand this behavior.”

Researchers have pushed back at the idea that orcas are attacking vessels. Instead, they theorize that the rudders of boats have become a plaything for curious young orcas and that the behavior has become a learned fad spreading through the population. Another hypothesis, according to biologists who published a study on the population last June, is that the ramming is an “adverse behavior” because of a bad experience between an orca and a boat — though researchers tend to favor the first.

It is unclear what will stop the ramming, whether it’s playful or otherwise, a point that has left anxious skippers traveling these parts sharing advice in Facebook groups dedicated to tracking such interactions .

“It’s been an interesting summer hiding in shallow waters,” said Greg Blackburn, a skipper based in Gibraltar. Orcas slammed into a boat he was commanding in May and chewed at the rudder, he said, though the vessel was able to return to shore.

The encounter left an impression: On a recent trip to Barcelona, Mr. Blackburn had to pass through a patch where orcas had been sighted the week before. “I genuinely felt sick for about three hours,” he said, “just watching the horizon constantly for a fin to pop up.”

Conservationists, maritime rescue groups and yacht clubs are partnering to navigate the challenge of preserving an endangered population and helping sailors avoid calamity. The Cruising Association, a club supporting sailors, has recommended safety protocols for orca encounters, such as disconnecting the boat’s autopilot and staying quiet. Skippers have offered one another anecdotal advice to deter attacks, including throwing sand into the water and banging loudly on the boat.

Before leaving shore, seagoers can also consult digital platforms that now track reported orca sightings and interactions in the region. This can help them avoid the animals, or chart a route closer to shore, said Bruno Díaz López, a biologist and the director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute based in Galicia, Spain.

“We suggested the boats stay in shallow waters,” he said, adding that they had noticed more boats changing their journeys. “Maybe the trip takes longer, yes. But it is worth it.”

Mr. Blackburn, the skipper, said he had heard of people resorting to throwing firecrackers into the sea to try to scare the animals away, adding that the boats served as people’s homes on the ocean. “At the end of the day, if you’re protecting your home what are you going to do?”

But the ocean is the orcas’ home, and conservationists say scaring the animals is not a solution.

“It is not about winning a battle, because this is not a war,” Mr. López said. “We need to be respectful.”

Isabella Kwai is a breaking news reporter in the London bureau. She joined The Times in 2017 as part of the Australia bureau. More about Isabella Kwai

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A pod of orcas smashed a $128k yacht into pieces in the Mediterranean in a two-hour attack described by its owner as “terrifying.” Robert Powell, the owner of the 39-foot Bonhomme William , told the New York Post that he had set sail from Vilamoura, Portugal only a day prior on a birthday trip to Greece when the orcas struck. “To me, they were not playing at all, they knew exactly what they were doing,” Powell told the Post. “They knew the weak points of the boat, and they knew how to sink it,” he added. Powell described five orcas circling the boat “like watching wolves hunt,” before they began attacking the rudder. Powell radioed for help as the attack began. Fifteen hits from the killer whales later, the boat was dead in the water, two miles off the Spanish coast. “They were taking it in turns to come in—sometimes two would come in at the same time and hit it,” Powell described the whales’ attack. With the rudder gone, the whales began knocking the hull for an hour and a half before the boat split. “I have a feeling that this group are boat sinkers—I think they knew what they were doing, I’m sure of it,” Powell said. A Spanish salvage vessel arrived only minutes before Powell’s boat capsized.

May 24, 2023

Why Has a Group of Orcas Suddenly Started Attacking Boats?

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

By Stephanie Pappas

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

Malcolm Schuyl/Alamy Stock Photo

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Nation & World

Scientists have a new theory about why orcas are attacking boats

The orcas have struck again — this time ramming a sailboat off Spain’s northwest coast, rescue workers said Tuesday.

A pod of orcas damaged the rudder of a sailboat, leaving its two-person crew stranded in the waters off Cape Finisterre on Sunday, according to an emailed statement from the rescue workers. It is the latest in a string of attacks by pods of orcas swimming around the Iberian Peninsula.

While the sailboat, the Amidala, did not sink, pods of orcas have sunken several vessels in recent years. Researchers still do not know whether the attacks are playful or malicious, but a new theory based on studying the troublesome pods of orcas suggests that they could be using the boats as practice targets for new hunting techniques. Other competing theories still exist.

Regardless of the orcas’ intentions, the behavior is enough to worry sailors journeying in the highly trafficked waters around North Africa, Spain and Portugal.

The Amidala, manned by a crew of two Belgians, encountered an unknown number of orcas on Sunday afternoon. They sent a mayday distress call to the Finisterre Maritime Rescue Center, which towed the vessel back to shore, the center said.

The sailboat’s damaged rudder and poor weather conditions in the area made the rescue more arduous, with waves reaching nearly 10 feet and winds up to 40 mph. A female crew member on the Amidala suffered injuries to her hand as the sailboat was being towed, and she was transferred to a rescue vessel, the rescue center said. After more than four hours, the Amidala made it back to shore.

In recent years, sailors have shared tips about how to stop orca rammings, or at the very least deter them. Deterrents include painting the hull a different color. Another tactic is to blast heavy metal music, or to scatter sand into the ocean. There’s also an app that tracks orca activity in the ocean, letting boats steer clear of pods.

Researchers have no definitive explanations about why orcas, seemingly in this region alone, are increasingly ramming ships. One theory suggests that the ramming stems from past traumatic encounters between orcas and boats. Some scientists think it may be simpler than that — as naturally curious and playful mammals, orcas may just be having some fun.

The other, new, theory comes from the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Spain, which has been tracking the orca ship rammings since 2020. It has found that orca pods off the coast of Spain, who migrate in the waters between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, have developed a taste of Atlantic bluefin tuna, according to a paper the institute will publish next month.

That species of tuna can grow up to 10 feet long and move at speeds that orcas can’t always catch, at least not without training, said Bruno Díaz López, the institute’s chief biologist. Sailboats are often the ideal size to train on — they move quickly and silently, and close to the water’s surface, not unlike the orcas’ prey.

Researchers studying the ramming incidents have found that it is mostly young orcas that go after sailboats, but sometimes adults appear to be teaching younger members of the pod how to do so. The orcas have also figured out that the rudder is soft enough to bite and that fiberglass makes for good ramming, Díaz López said.

“This is like a training toy,” Díaz López said. “It’s a shame that we humans are in the middle of this game, but they are learning.”

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Mystery over boat-ramming killer whales blamed for sinking yachts solved as scientists uncover reason for orca attacks

• Mackenzie Tatananni , Science and Tech Reporter
• Published : 16:54, 5 Sep 2024
• Updated : 19:01, 5 Sep 2024
• Published : Invalid Date,

ORCAS know exactly what they're doing when they ram into boats - and now scientists have proposed an explanation.

The peculiar behavior has captured public interest and sparked a spate of internet memes .

A lighthearted theory emerged among netizens that the creatures were taking "revenge" against a human presence in their waters.

This came after a series of highly publicized collisions, including an instance in late July where a pod of orcas tipped over a 39-foot yacht.

At the time, the owner claimed the act was intentional, proclaiming the killer whales "knew exactly what they were doing."

And a new theory suggests that may be the case.

A study published June 18 in Ocean and Coastal Management presents compelling evidence that orcas use boats for target practice as they learn to hunt.

Researchers at the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Spain noted an increase in reports of "interactive behavior" with vessels around the Iberian Peninsula since 2020.

They believe juvenile orcas might be honing in on the boats' rudders as they practice hunting Atlantic bluefin tuna.

The researchers pored over population distribution data and found that 47% of 597 records of killer whale occurrences involved a vessel.

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Using this information, they created computer models of the orcas' movements to paint a picture of their seasonal movements.

The models demonstrated that the orcas and their prey - tuna, not boats - were driven by the same environmental factors.

Notably, seasonal shifts in the orcas' preferred habitats aligned with the tuna's migration.

Orcas are apex predators, meaning they sit at the top of the food chain with no natural predators of their own.

This responsibility comes with a generous appetite. Killer whales have a varied diet ranging from larger mammals like seals to fish, squid, and sea birds.

Different orca communities prefer different food sources, with the Iberian population favoring tuna.

"The abundance of Atlantic bluefin tuna...in the area, particularly during spring and summer, has led to a significant dietary focus on this fish species, at least during the mentioned seasons, for this killer whale population," the scientists wrote.

Scientists suspect the plentiful supply - fueled, in part, by conservation efforts - makes hunting easier and leaves the orcas with leisure time.

Killer whales are highly social animals that work in close-knit groups to catch prey. To isolate an individual tuna from a school, they ram. Once they've succeeded, they exhaust the fish and chase it towards shallower waters.

Based on anecdotal evidence, the scientists believe the orcas are performing similar actions by repeatedly ramming the rudder before trying to take a bite.

In addition to clearing up a common misconception, the conclusions may impact killer whale conservation.

As a species, orcas are woefully misunderstood, and boat-ramming does not help their reputation.

There have been no reports of fatal attacks on humans in their natural habitat, but the creatures are often perceived as bloodthirsty beasts.

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In addition to improving public perception, a better understanding of orca behavior could help boaters avoid collisions and reduce property damage.

"This approach aims to provide valuable insights into the habitat preferences of this species with the potential to enhance conservation efforts by informing strategies to mitigate human-killer whale interactions," the scientists wrote.

Orcas - How dangerous are they?

Orcas - also known as killer whales - are the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family.

The creatures are dubbed "killer whales" as they hunt and eat other smaller species of dolphin.

Some also feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals like seals and other dolphins.

They're known as apex predators meaning they're at the top of the food-chain and no other animals feed on them.

There are no recorded incidents of orcas attacking humans before the bizarre boat-bashings, but they have been known to feast on other land-dwelling mammals like moose who swim between islands.

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Rescue dog has plenty to say during rare orca encounter; video, share this article.

A pod of rarely seen orcas was a wonderful source of excitement for a group of San Diego whale watchers last Wednesday. But perhaps the most curious and enthusiastic member of the charter was a rescue dog named Fin.

The accompanying footage , captured by Domenic Biagini of Gone Whale Watching San Diego , shows a tethered Fin gazing intently at the orcas while expressing an apparent desire to leap overboard and greet them personally.

Bigaini imagined via Instagram how Fin might recall the encounter:

“Last week I got to meet the pod of Eastern Tropical Pacific Killer Whales that everyone was talking so much about last winter. As a lifelong HUGE fan of dolphins, it was such a treat to meet the biggest dolphins in the world!”

Fin added: “I told my dad that I wasn’t thrilled being confined to the middle part of the boat by two leashes, but my dad knew that I’d be a sea-puppy without those restraints! I just wanted a sniff!”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Domenic Biagini (@dolphindronedom)

The orcas were so close that Fin began to bark, but was quickly calmed.

The 5-year-old mixed lab/retriever, found in poor condition near the U.S.-Mexico border, has developed excellent sea legs and eagerly accompanies Biagini on his charters.

Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales, most commonly encountered off Mexico, occasionally venture into Southern California waters to hunt dolphins and other marine mammals.

Gone Whale Watching San Diego encountered the ETPs last Wednesday and observed the mammals until sunset as they began to swim back toward Mexico.

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