News Excerpt:
Two people were rescued on May 12 after a group of orcas, also known as killer whales, sank their 15-metre-long sailing yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar, 22.5 kilometres off the coast of Morocco.
More About Report:
- Data by the research group GT Atlantic Orca (GTOA) show that since 2020 there have been more than 700 interactions between orcas and boats in some cases, boats sustained critical damages near the Strait of Gibraltar.
- Owing to the high frequency of the interactions, they become a multinational issue which involves scientists and officials from Spain, Portugal, and Morocco.
- Anxious sailors have gathered to share advice on navigating “orca alley,” and biologists are tracking the orcas’ movements and testing methods that could deter them.
- Researchers are ascertained with behavior of the orcas, and they have come up with possibilities that either the orcas are playing around or they are reacting to negative experiences with the boats.
The orcas are playing around:
- A part of the dolphin family, orcas or killer whales
- They can measure up to 8 metres in length and weigh up to 6 tonnes as adults are highly intelligent and curious mammals, who are not known to be aggressive against humans in the wild.
- Therefore, some scientists believe that targeting boats could be just a form of play or a fad, a behaviour initiated by one or two individuals and temporarily picked up by others before it is abandoned for the orcas.
- Research has shown that once juvenile orcas learn a new behaviour, they tend to keep repeating it, much like toddlers.
- Some young orcas possibly learnt to push the boats and are now repeating the behavior ad nauseam.
- An orca specialist stated that orcas are just pushing the rudders until they break. “It is a game.
The orcas are attacking
- A traumatic event must have happened with one or two orcas, triggering a change in their behaviour, which is being imitated by the rest of the population near the Strait of Gibraltar.
- Some scientists suspect that a female orca, whom they call White Gladis, went through a similar traumatizing experience, which altered her behaviour.
- There have been some instances of orcas getting tangled in fishing lines, usually used by the region’s fishermen to snap up some fish.
- A researcher with GTOA, stated that traumatised orca is the one that started this behaviour of physical contact with the boat.”
- Regardless of the reason behind orcas targeting the boats, researchers fear that if such incidents continue to take place it would not only endanger the lives of mariners but also become a conservation issue for orcas.
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