orca boat attacks

this is gonna be very long but if you care about animals/endangered animals or marine life in general then i would really love it if you read the whole thing.

if you haven't heard yet, there's recently been some reoccurring incidents of orcas attacking boats. you've likely seen some memes about it or links to an article with some exaggerated title or something. marine life is a huge personal special interest of mine and i decided to read up about the whole thing for my own interest but the more i read the more i realised vast majority of people don't actually know what's happening at all. i spent about 2+ hrs researching this and wrote a whole twitter thread about it but writing in twt threads is restricting so i'm gonna relay that information again here with some extra stuff (with all my sources listed at the end)! 

DISCLAIMER! i am not an expert or marine scientist or anything, its simply a special interest that i spent a lot of time researching and all the information i have here comes from articles where orca and marine life experts were interviewed for their professional opinions.

 

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first and foremost it's important to understand that these "attacks" are not happening randomly in all parts of the world, they are happening in one particular area off the coasts of spain, portugal and morocco among one group of orcas. this group of orcas is typically referred to as the iberian orcas, they are their own classified subpopulation with minor genetic differences to other orcas and they are the only ones that have been displaying this behaviour for the past 3 years. they are also critically endangered. there have been times where other orcas in another parts of the world have run-ins with boats but vast majority of these are one-offs or completely random encounters. a few days ago an orca off the coast of shetland, uk had rammed into a yacht but as of right now experts think it's just a coincidence and not the same as what's happening with the iberian orcas. the iberian orcas have been ripping rudders off boats consistently for about 3 years and as of june 2023 it's become and almost daily occurrence however only 3 boats have been sunk this year and as far as i can find the orcas have caused no human casualties so far. 

when the attacks first started in may 2020 there was a running theory that this was the work of an older female orca named white gladis. some believed that she had be traumatised by boats in the past and was now taking revenge as well as teaching other orcas how to destroy boats. some sailors who's boats were targeted also said that it appeared as though the older orcas were teaching the younger ones how to rip off the rudder, they are however, not experts and that was just their interpretations. while orcas are intelligent and complex creatures it is impossible to currently verify if they can or cannot feel vengeful or have the capabilities to seek revenge. most orca experts who have been interviewed on these incidents believe that this is simply not what's motivating these animals. the revenge theory doesn't make much sense because other orcas in other areas of the world have experienced much MUCH worse at the hands of humans and boats than white gladis and it doesn't make sense that it's only this particular group of orcas that are taking revenge. 

the truth of the matter is these orcas are just playing. there's no "uprising" or "revolution" or anything of the sort happening. the orcas are only playing with the boats and do not have the capacity to understand that they are breaking a piece of very valuable equipment or that they are causing a lot of fear. they have absolutely no interest in the humans on board the boats and almost always get bored and leave once the boat halts. typically a group of orcas will swim up to the boat, ram into it in a playful manner (that's probably very stimulating for them as they are very tactile creatures), then they rip off the rudder and once the boat comes to a stop they swim off. out of the 35-ish iberian orcas that live in the area it's mostly just 9 of them, all of which are juveniles, that are doing this. sometimes they have adults with them but the adult orcas very rarely join in and usually just watch.

orcas have on several occasions been documented to have "tends" spread throughout their communities and experts believe that this is exactly what this is. they believe this is a "fad" that they will get bored of eventually. they are not acting out of malice or any greater purpose, it's really just a group of young orcas following a trend and messing around. some have suggested that if boat owners take extra caution to avoid the orcas as much as possible that they may let go of this trend quicker. 

when i posted my twitter thread someone suggested that maybe they're fighting back for their food, but it's not likely. from what i could find online this particular area isn't prone to overfishing plus they are clearly displaying Playful Behaviours around the boats. yes they do play with fishing boats and sometimes steal some food along the way but the orcas are not looking for boats that specifically have food around them, they've gone after several pleasure yachts and smaller private boats, so it's not likely to be about food. 

another person linked an article that suggested that the waters are full of plastic and its poisoning the orcas and that's messing with their heads and is making them attack boats for no reason. unfortunately it's entirely possible that these waters are heavily polluted and full of plastic poisoning however there hasn't been a link between that and the orcas behaviour, but it can't be entirely ruled out until tested. but once again, these orcas are not acting like they do when they hunt or when they defend themselves or attack other animals or like they don't know what they're doing, they are most likely JUST playing.

the most concerning part about this whole situation is how little people seem to care about the orcas themselves. the idea that they are revolutionising or taking revenge is twisting the narrative that these animals are acting with some sort of malice or with some sort of intent to cause an uprising and this is very dangerous, even if most people are rooting for them at them moment. we've seen time and time again how easily the media can change public perception when it comes to animals. the jaws movie, for example, caused a mass hatred and fear of all sharks and caused an unprecedented amount of misinformation to spread about them. for YEARS (and even to this day) people believed that sharks have some sort of bloodlust and that they will easily attack without any reason or provocation and for these reasons many people easily overlooked the mass hunting of sharks. at this moment people are rooting for the orcas but what happens when they do something the public doesn't like? what happens when people are convinced these animals are acting out of malice and feel no remorse when something horrible is done to them "take care of it"? i really hope nothing like that ever happens but remember all the people who hated stingrays after steve irwin died after an encounter with one? if people truly believe these animals have the capability to be "evil" or "mean" or "malicious" it will, not might, it WILL hurt them in the end. 

what's more, these particular orcas are INCREDIBLY endangered. in 2011 there was a recorded 39 of them and now in 2023 it's suspected that's there only about 35 or so left. what truly scares me is that frustrated sailors have started arming themselves and their boats and have told media that they will take matters into their own hands and lethally hurt the animals if they come near their boats. i really REALLY hope that if anything like that is to happen that the portuguese and spanish governments will take extreme measures to protect the iberian orcas. both countries do currently have laws for the the protection of cetaceans but further measures may be necessary if the threats from sailors persist. these orcas are on the IUCN's red list aka they are classified as critically endangered, however i sadly could not find any public organisations that are currently working towards any conservation that we can back/support/help so at of right now it's just important to keep up to date with information and put as much pressure on officials as possible to keep these orcas safe. 

a few days after i posted my thread i got an angry reply from someone because i apparently wasn't letting people have fun with this. i couldn't care any less. i quite honestly do not give a flying fuck about you and your memes and your jokes and fun, all of which is completely ignoring the real issues and spreading misinformation. i care about the endangered wild animals as the centre of this situation who can get very hurt if people don't open their fucking eyes and realise that these orcas are not invincible and will get hurt if we're not prepared to help. 

people continue to push false and literally scientifically incorrect narratives about these animals and act like they care but they don't. if you actually cared you'd understand that these are WILD ANIMALS and while they are very smart they are not humans and using human morals, standard and psychology to judge their actions and write some fantasy story about them is like...the opposite of helping. they are not humans they do not have concept like "evil" or "good" or anything of the sort, those are entirely human concepts. they are simply behaving in a way that feels natural to them, there is no way for them to understand that what they're doing is bad OR GOOD they are simply partaking in the very neutral act of PLAYING with no other agenda attached. they're literally just playing and boats just happen to be the toy of choice at the moment.


thank you for reading, i hope this wasn't too messy and was easy to understand. 

also fun fact orcas aren't whales, they're dolphins and the largest of the dolphin family (their other name, "killer whale", unfortunately misleading) 

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i'm sorry if i come off as harsh there at the end but i need people to understand that all these jokes and memes about the orcas in this situation are not at harmless as they seem. these animals are not invincible and will more than likely need our protection. please be aware of the dangers they face and correct misinformation when you see it. i honestly kinda wish i didn't read up on this bc now when i see all the memes and people joking about this situation i just get annoyed and want to correct them T~T i don't want to come off like an asshole or too pretentious i just don't like how mush misinformation/missing facts there are out there and how little people know about the status of these poor endangered orcas :( i may add to this if i come across anything else or if we get anymore news. 

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sources:

https://www.orcaiberica.org/en/que-son-las-orcas

https://www.orcaiberica.org/en/que-son-las-orcas#:~:text=In%202011%2C%2039%20individuals%20were,community%2C%20but%20observed%20several%20times.&text=The%20Iberian%20orcas%20are%20a,orca%20population%20and%20are%20endangered


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/19/orca-attacks-sinking-boats-science/


https://www.businessinsider.com/why-killer-whales-orcas-attack-sink-boats-2023-6?amp


https://futurism.com/the-byte/orcas-attacking-boats-almost-every-day


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-has-a-group-of-orcas-suddenly-started-attacking-boats/?amp=true



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livys

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i wasn't aware of that. but if they even made memes then of course most are just laughing and saying "aww how cute, bla, bla.." it's really sad to see that some don't take the extinction of animals seriously or pretend they care. this reminds me of something that happened today when i was on the street and i saw a boy buying something and throwing the packaging on the floor...coming back to the subject.. i hope people create awareness and save orcas and all endangered animals this is very serious. thanks for sharing what's going on.


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