This is an ongoing story. It’s back in the news today. Orcas in the Mediterranean attacking small boats. They seem to be targeting the steering year i.e. the rudder of boats to disable them. It seems to be a very intelligent tactic to stop the boats and sometimes the occupants have had to call the coastguard and abandon their boat. Sometimes the boat is damaged sufficiently to cause it to sink.
This would appear to be the objective of the orca. They want to disable the boat (the threat). My research on why this is happening comes up blank. It appears that the experts don’t know why it’s happening. There have been some suggestions one of which includes curiosity and playfulness but that simply can’t be true. That doesn’t fit very well with what is happening.
Another theory is protective behaviour and the third is to protect resources. During May, there is tuna migration in the Strait of Gibraltar and during this time orcas seem to escalate their confrontations with boats.
And my research also indicates that orcas have home ranges. What I mean by this is that they have their areas where they live and where they hunt prey. These home ranges can cover vast distances and they exhibit site fidelity meaning they return to specific locations for feeding, meeting and socialising.
Some populations have well-defined home ranges while others are more migratory. Some transient orcas roam over large areas in search of prey. It seems to be a little bit like lions and lion prides. Sometimes a small group of males will not be part of a pride and life is more difficult for them.
Resource protection
But surely, here we have the makings of a deliberate attempt by orcas to see off from their home ranges a threat. And the threat is humans in small boats. They think these people are taking their prey; their tuna. Sometimes the orcas attack fishing boats. In which case they are protecting their food resources.
Perhaps orcas are unable to tell whether the boat is a fishing boat or a pleasure craft. But they attack it nonetheless as a protective measure. My hypothesis is that this is about resource protection. It’s about competition. It’s about survival. Humans are jeopardising the survival of orcas as they see it.
Intelligence
You might think that I’m talking out of turn and humanising an animal. But I’m not. Orcas are highly intelligent marine mammals. They exhibit remarkable cognitive abilities and complex social behaviours. Not long ago I wrote about sperm whales and the clicks (coda) that they make. Research on sperm whale language indicates that it is very complicated perhaps not unlike our language.
Orcas can solve puzzles, learning from experience and adapting to new situations. They’ve been observed using tools such as sponges to protect their snouts when foraging on rocky seabeds.
Orcas communicate through a sophisticated system of clicks, whistles and calls. Different pods have unique dialects. This suggests cultural differences within different groups. They are probably far more intelligent than humans give them credit for.
Orcas live in tight knit family groups called pods. They cooperate during hunting and they share their food and care for their young. In some parts individuals have distinct roles within the group.
And orcas display emotions. They form strong bonds and mourn their dead. They display empathy and protective behaviour towards injured or sick pod members.
And young orcas learn from older members. They pass down their knowledge about hunting techniques, migration routes and other important aspects of their lives.
When you understand how intelligent they are as stated above, it is not difficult to imagine that orcas are deliberately targeting these boats to protect food resources. That must be the common sense reason and I am surprised that the experts have not focused more on this and done more research on it.
Warning to stick to coastline
Because these incidents are ongoing and dangerous to boaters, small vessels have been warned to stick to the coastline around Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar. This was after another orca attack. Spain’s authorities issued this warning recently.
Recent attack
In the latest incident a 50-foot boat was attacked in Moroccan waters with two people aboard, on Sunday. The orca knocked into the vessel several times which damaged its rudder and caused a leak. The occupants felt sudden blows. Water started to seep into the vessel. They were picked up by a passing oil tanker which was notified by rescuers and their boat later sank.
It is the latest in a line of attacks in the region which became more frequent last year when there were 20 incidents all of which occurred in the Strait of Gibraltar according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group. And there have been dozens of orca attacks on ships recorded along the coasts of Spain and Portugal.
The above-mentioned working group say that there had been a known 197 such interactions in 2021 and a further 207 and 2022. Most of the incidents have been harmless. Sometimes the orcas simply touch the boat (gving a polite warning to stay away?).
A sailing boat participating in a sailing race from The Netherlands to Italy had a 15-minute encounter with an orca. They dropped their sails and made noises to fend them off. Swimmers are not attacked.
The orcas seem to stop attacking the boat when the vessel has been immobilised. They seem to be attacking boats in a wide arc covering the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula from the waters near the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain’s north-western Galicia.
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