Are the killer whale boat attacks what they seem?

ITV News' Sam Holder reports on the killer whale phenomenon

A racing yacht competing in the last leg of the around-the-world Ocean Race has become the latest victim in a spate of orca attacks on boats near Gibraltar.

Experts believe a 'traumatised' killer whale may be spearheading the attacks and teaching other orcas to carry them out.

There were 20 incidents of orcas preying on boats in May alone - and some 500 similar events have been recorded since 2020.

In a video of the latest attack, orcas can be seen pushing up against and ramming into the boats while biting at the rudders. No injuries or damage to the boats occurred as a result of the incident.

Members of the Team JAJO can be heard saying "they're going to get the rudder" before banging on the hull in an effort to scare off the orcas.

And on Wednesday, The Guardian reported that an orca repeatedly rammed a yacht in the North Sea off Scotland.

The Atlantic Orca Working Group, a team of Spanish and Portuguese marine life researchers who study killer whales near the Iberia Peninsula, says that these incidents were first reported three years ago. In 2020, the group registered 52 such events, some of which resulted in damaged rudders. That increased to 197 in 2021 and to 207 in 2022.

The killer whales seem to be targeting boats in a wide arc covering the western coast of the Iberia Peninsula, from the waters near the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain’s northwestern Galicia.

According to the group, these killer whales are a small group of about 35 whales that spend most of the year near the Iberian coast in pursuit of red tuna. The so-called Iberian orcas average from five to 6.5 metres in length, compared to the orcas of Antarctica which can reach nine metres.

Watch the moment a boat off the coast of Portugal comes under attack by a pod of killer whales in May

There have been no reports of attacks against swimmers. The interactions on boats seem to stop once the vessel becomes immobilised.

Biologist Alfredo López, of the University of Aveiro and member of the research group, said that the incidents are rare - and enticingly odd.

“In none of the cases that we have been able to see on video have we witnessed any behavior that could be considered aggressive,” López said on Friday. “They appear calm, nothing at all like when they are on the hunt.”

López said that while the cause of the behavioral turn is unknown, his group has identified 15 individual whales that are involved in the incidents. He said that 13 are young whales, which could support the hypothesis that they are playing, while two are adults, which could support a competing theory that the behavior is the result of some traumatic event with a boat.

In either case, he said the whales are showing once again that they are social animals.

“Orcs are animals with their own culture,” he said. “They transmit information to one another.”

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