With videoIt remains unsettled in the Strait of Gibraltar. Again orcas have attacked a boat there. It’s a remarkable series of attacks – since 2020 – that seems to have started with one vengeful orca: White Gladis.
Researchers collectively point to one traumatized killer whale. The animal, a female orca who has been given the name ‘White Gladis’, may have once suffered a traumatic collision with a boat. That one critical moment would have caused the killer whale to react aggressively and vengefully towards boats. That behavior is copied and taught to other orcas in the group. Killer whales are notorious for their impressive intelligence and cooperation, and their specialized hunting techniques that they pass down through generations.
‘Tear the boat apart’
Since 2020, there have been continuous reports of orcas having this type of collision with boats in the Strait of Gibraltar and the waters around the Spanish region of Galicia. It is possible that the same group of killer whales is always involved. This week, a pod of killer whales again attacked sailing yachts in the Strait of Gibraltar, sinking one completely.
This time the boat of the British April Boyes was the target. According to her, it “looked like the orcas wanted to tear the boat apart,” she says The Sun. What followed was an almost hour-long attack by the killer whales on her boat, which is eventually sunk. The frightened April and her three other crew members were rescued in a lifeboat.
It is already the third time since 2020 that the infamous group killer whales manages to sink a boat. It was quiet for a while around the now infamous group of orcas. It happened twice earlier this month.
The body spasms
Greg Blackburn from Leeds, UK, ran into heavy weather in his ‘Bavaria 46’ at the beginning of May. Waves up to three meters high crashed against his boat. Suddenly he felt a huge blow. “We knew immediately: there is something down there,” says the Briton 9News. “And then we saw the orcas.” They saw two large specimens, which were soon joined by another four orcas. ,,I thought ‘oh dear’”, says Blackburn. “There’s not much you can do at a time like this.” After a while, the orcas lost interest in the boat and left, but only after their pounding had caused thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to the yacht and terrified those on board for an hour.
Small ones copy behavior of older killer whales
Two days later a sailing boat was even sunk. The Swiss sailing boat ‘Champagne’ was visited by a pod of three orcas, one larger and two smaller. They rammed the boat so hard and brutally that it left a hole in the rudder. The Spanish coastguard managed to rescue the crew in time, but the sailboat sank completely. Captain Werner Schaufelberger: ,,The two smaller orcas observed the technique of the larger one and after a small run-up also hit themselves against the boat.” The killer whales stopped when the rudder was completely destroyed and the water in the yacht began to slowly rise, to the point that the pumps could no longer cope.
Study: ‘more than 250 attacks’
Portuguese biologist Alfredo López Fernandez contributed to a study about the attacks that was published last year in the scientific journal Marine Mammal Science. The 2022 study speaks of “more than 250 attacks” by orcas on boats since 2020, all roughly in the waters between the Strait of Gibraltar and Galicia. According to the study, the attacks are ‘increasingly frequent’. So they appear to be mainly aimed at sailboats and happen according to the same pattern: the orcas approach from the rear part of the ship and hit the rudder. Once they stop the boat, they lose interest.
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