5 reasons why critically endangered orcas are attacking boats on the Iberian peninsula

A critically endangered subpopulation of killer whales (Orcinus orca) from the Strait of Gibraltar is attacking boats and yachts crossing the Iberian Peninsula. In at least three documented cases, the boats were sunk. Nobody knows exactly why but here are some of the most interesting explanations.

1. Past trauma

Alfredo Lopez Fernandez, a researcher from Atlantic Orca Working Group, believes the pod’s matriarch, a whale they call White Gladis, was traumatized by something before the attacks of 2020.

An accidental collision with a rudder would explain why she attacks rudders. Researchers believe her violent behavior is being imitated rather than learned behavior from the juvenile whales attacking boats by targeting their rudder.

2. Food competition

The Iberian orcas associate boats with competition and food. They compete with local fishermen for Atlantic bluefin tuna, their main source of food.

They do so by actively hunting tuna until exhaustion or through longline depredation, which is when they take the fish off the fishing lines for an easy snack. There are records of whales wounded from commercial fishing lines, and many accounts of fishermen attacking orcas with harpoons.

3. Playful behavior

Dr. Deborah Giles, an orca researcher, thinks this behavior is playful in nature. Of the 15 whales observed ramming into vessels, 13 of them were young juveniles. When boats have been disabled and people are taken to safety, the whales leave. They don’t pursue or interact with the smaller vessels carrying people.

4. Temporary fad

Dr Luke Rendell, marine mammal researcher at the University of St Andrews, believes it is a temporary fad spread through social learning. He likens it to accounts of orcas mimicking sea lions, or captive orcas learning to regurgitate fish to use as bait for seagulls.

5. Injured orca calf

Fisherman Antonio Rodriguez thinks a sailor may have accidentally injured an orca calf and that’s why the whales are attacking the boats. Is life imitating art? The 1977 film Orca depicted a killer whale exacting revenge on a fisherman who killed his mate and unborn calf.