Orcas attacking boats are really just bored teenagers having fun, experts say

Lina PortmanJune 4, 2024

0 2 minutes read

Orcas who have been bumping boats in Iberian waters for four years, they're probably bored teenagers who spend too much time on their fins, experts say.

A report published on May 24 revealed that killer whales (Orcs Orcinus) involved in a series of ram boat incidents in southwest Europe spend less time hunting and more time explore new games now that the populations of their favorite prey have rebounded. At least 673 interactions with boats since May 2020, six of which caused the boats to sink, could be because these orcas had more time on their hands, the report said.

Something about the rudder underneath the boats seems to attract the orcas, especially the younger members of the group who are generally more curious. Anyway, “playing with the rudder, they do not understand that they can damage the rudder and that damaging the rudder will affect human beings”, co-author Alex Zerbinisaid a senior research scientist at the University of Washington who chairs the scientific committee of the International Whaling Commission, a global body responsible for whale conservation. The Washington Post.

“There is nothing in the behavior of the animals that suggests they are aggressive,” Zerbini said.

Fifteen orcas interacted with the boats, mostly young and adolescent males, according to the report. These orcas constitute a subset of the critically endangered Iberian population, which is believed to number fewer than 40 individuals.

Related: Boat-sinking orcas spotted hundreds of miles from where they should be, confusing scientists

A video published on May 17 by the Spanish group Conservation, Information and Research on Cetaceans (CIRCE), shows how orcas break rudders by pushing them with their noses and heads. It's unclear exactly how this behavior began, but scientists have largely rejected previous suggestions. it could be motivated by revenge and I now think it's more likely gaming related.

An orca may have initiated this behavior after touching the rudder of a boat and feeling like it was fun to play with, Zerdini said.

“This is obviously a very dangerous game that they are playing,” co-author Naomi Rose, a senior scientist and marine mammal expert at the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, DC, told the Washington Post. “But it’s a game.”

Iberian orcas playing with boats could be linked to an increase in the abundance of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), their favorite food, according to the report. Bluefin tuna was previously the target of widespread overfishing, with numbers fall to critical levels in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but populations in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea have largely rebounded over the last 15 years.

Rebuilding bluefin tuna stocks could mean orcas “will have all this free time because they won't have to eat every fish they find,” Rose said. Ram boats could have a similar trend to previous fads – which include orcas wearing dead salmon as hats And throwing baby porpoises — but there isn't enough data to determine exactly how this behavior spreads through the population, according to the report.

Beating up boats may be a game for orcas, but it's certainly not a game for sailors. In the report, scientists outline measures to limit the “satisfaction or reward” orcas get from interacting with boats. These measures include avoiding orcas when possible, equipping boats with abrasive or bumpy rudders rather than smooth ones, and making slapping noises in the water.

“We don’t want to see more boats sinking and we don’t want to see people in distress,” Zerbini said. “But we also don't want the animals to get hurt. And we have to remember that this is their habitat and we are in their way.”