Orcas living off Europe's Iberian coast recently struck and sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar.
a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar. Scientists suspect that this is the third vessel this subpopulation of killer whales has capsized since May 2020, when a female orca believed to be the originator of this behavior suffered a traumatic encounter with a boat.
There are other kinds of behavior that do appear to bring rewards – for example, captive orcas learning to regurgitate fish to use as bait for gulls, which they apparently prefer to eat over the fish. But the origin and spread of these boat attacks currently fits very well with the characterization of a temporary fad, and it remains to be seen how long it persists.
The precise reason is very hard to know for sure, but we do know the behavior has spread through her group. And it's difficult to explain that dynamic without involving some kind of social learning – the spread of information.I have experienced orcas swimming very close to our boat in the waters near St Vincent, in the eastern Caribbean, during a research survey. Our vessel, like those involved in these interactions, was about the size of a large whale .
Of course, small vessel operators do not need to navigate the areas along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal where these interactions with orcas have been happening.
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