Orcas attacking boats in Europe: 3 boats have been sunken in the last week, why?

Three boats have become victims of these strange events over the past week, leaving specialists and the general public debating the reasons behind these incidents. 

Let’s dive into these incidents of orcas attacking boats to understand the depths of this fascinating and terrifying phenomena.

Why are Orcas attacking boats?

A recent incident off the Iberian coast of Europe has seen orcas —also known as killer whales— engage in a puzzling and concerning behavior. Orcas attacking boats were seen a total of 3 times. The third boat was recently sunk.

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On the night of May 4, three orcas targeted a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar near Spain, causing significant damage by piercing the vessel’s rudder. Werner Schaufelberger, the yacht’s skipper, described the incident, noting that the attack was perpetuated by two smaller orcas and one larger one.

Remarkably, the smaller orcas appeared to mimic the actions of the larger one, following its lead in aggressively ramming the boat. Despite the Spanish coast guards’ rescue efforts and the subsequent towing of the damaged boat to Barbate, it ultimately sank at the port entrance. This unusual behavior has raised concerns among experts, who suspect it may be a learned behavior spreading within the orca population.

Orcas attacking boats: previous incidents

Just two days prior to the recent incident in Spain, a group of six orcas had targeted another sailboat navigating the same strait. 

Greg Blackburn, who was on board that vessel, observed what appeared to be a mother orca imparting a lesson to her calf on how to strike the boat’s rudder. He described the encounter as a clear instance of educational behavior among the orcas. Orcas attacking boats in front of others may have a pedagogical purpose.

These aggressive encounters with orcas off the Iberian coast have been on the rise since May 2020, as highlighted in a study. These attacks predominantly involve sailing boats and follow a consistent pattern: orcas approach from the stern, target the rudder, and then lose interest after successfully halting the boat’s progress.

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Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and a representative of the Atlantic Orca Working Group (Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica), emphasized that reports of such interactions have been ongoing since 2020 in regions where orcas are commonly found, such as Galicia and the Strait.

Orcas attacking boats is a relatively new phenomenon, according to López Fernandez. Researchers believe that a traumatic incident may have triggered a change in the behavior of a specific orca, which has subsequently been adopted by the rest of the orca population.

While the exact origin and motivation behind the orcas’ actions remain unknown, López Fernandez emphasized that the prevailing theory suggests defensive behavior stemming from trauma as the potential root cause. This theory gains credibility with each passing day.

Experts suspect that a female orca named White Gladis experienced a “critical moment of agony”, possibly a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing activities, which led to a shift in her behavior. 

According to López Fernandez, this traumatized orca is believed to be the one that initiated the behavior of physical contact with boats.

Orcas are highly social animals with a remarkable capacity to learn and replicate behaviors observed in others, as indicated by the 2022 study. In most reported cases, orcas have shown a particular interest in a boat’s rudder, often biting, bending, or damaging it.

López Fernandez clarified that this behavior is not necessarily indicative that orcas attacking boats has become a sort of teaching lesson passed to their youngest, although the behavior has spread vertically to younger orcas through imitation and subsequently horizontally among members of the population. 

This suggests that these interactions hold significance in their social lives.

Despite the potential risks involved in colliding with moving boat structures, orcas appear to view this behavior as beneficial, according to López Fernandez. Since these unusual interactions began in 2020, four orcas belonging to a subpopulation residing in Iberian waters have unfortunately perished, although their deaths cannot be directly linked to boat encounters.

The whole incident of orcas attacking boats could also be interpreted as playful or categorized as a “fad” among researchers. This term refers to behavior initially introduced by one or a few individuals and temporarily adopted by others before being abandoned.

Deborah Giles, an orca researcher affiliated with the University of Washington and the non-profit organization Wild Orca, suggested that orcas are incredibly curious and playful creatures, implying that their actions may be driven more by a sense of playfulness than aggression —a relieving hypothesis.
Researches continue to study orcas behavior, as for now there have not been new incidents of orcas attacking boats.

This article is based on information shared by LiveScience.

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