As of 2020, a small pod of killer whales in the Strait of Gibraltar is attacking sailing vessels: rams, presses their body and head against the hull, and bites and tears off the rudders. Some call it “The Orca Rebellion”.

Over a period of three years, more than 500 attacks have been recorded, three boats were sunk and dozens more were damaged. Last month, the first instance of this behavior was recorded elsewherewhen an orca rammed a boat near Shetland.
Scientists are trying to interpret and decode the behavior of whales and the questions that are put in focus are: first what whales do and why they do it.

The first question is easier to answer, or rather not to answer: we don’t know what they are doing or why. “What I think is most exciting about this is that we really don’t know at all,” says Tom Mustill, a biologist and filmmaker who wrote How To Speak Whale.

“It could be a strange and playful behavior”says the 2021 report from Grupo Trabajo Orca Atlántica, a collaboration of Spanish and Portuguese scientists.

There have been no reported cases of these wild whales killing humansbut, says Mustill: “If killer whales wanted to start attacking peopledestroying small boats is a very strange way to do this. They could just start eating swimmers everywhere.”.

However, scientists also reveal the motive of revenge as a possibility. The Atlantic Orca Task Force 2021 report also suggested that attacks may be the result of the whales’ experiences with humans. Since a ‘matriarch’ orca, the ‘White Gladis’, appears to have initiated these attacks on boats and people, there the thought that a previous injury or involvement might have led her to act.

Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan, says that orcas have no clear sense of what humans have done in their environment. As evidenced by the actions of Lefki Gladis, orca society is matriarchal and females can live up to 100: “They will have a memory, almost a memory of generations, of a time when the ocean was not dominated by human beings. when there were no seismic surveys, locomotives, then diesel engines, military sonar… The most important thing for them is sound: there will be individual whales who remember when the sea was not so noisy.’

Also, Mustill explains that the attribution of revenge attacks is solely about human intervention in their environment and says that “we feel that something profoundly unfair is happening in the ocean.” From movies like Free Willy to Blackfish, we’ve realized how tragic the idea of ​​keeping orcas in captivity is and we are increasingly aware of the degradation of our seas. Hoare says photos of the Iberian whales suggest they are in poor condition, with their ribs showing in one of the photos, demonstrating how much their environment has been affected.