Orcas attack solo sailor off the Scottish coast

In recent incidents, an orca has been repeatedly ramming into a boat in the North Sea near Scotland’s Shetland Islands. This occurrence follows a growing number of interactions between orcas and vessels reported in the seas off Gibraltar, Spain, and Portugal.

Experts have yet to determine the exact cause of the increase in these incidents. However, they speculate that the ramming behavior could be a result of playfulness among juvenile whales or newly acquired defensive behaviors.

One such incident involved Dr. Wim Rutten, a 72-year-old retired physicist from the Netherlands, who was fishing for mackerel while sailing from Lerwick to Bergen, Norway. During his voyage on Monday, an orca emerged in the clear water and forcefully struck the stern of his seven-ton yacht. Dr. Rutten described feeling a sense of fear, especially due to the loud breathing of the animal. The orca then lingered behind the boat, seemingly inspecting the keel before disappearing temporarily. It returned multiple times at high speed, circling the area. Dr. Rutten speculated that the orca may have been motivated by a desire to play, establish eye contact, or free itself from a fishing line.

In a separate incident near Gibraltar in June, another sailor recounted how his yacht was tossed around violently by orcas. The mammals damaged the boat and tore off its rudders, leaving the vessel at their mercy. The sailor witnessed a large whale and four smaller ones repeatedly bumping into the boat, with one of them successfully removing a rudder. As a result, the boat lost both rudders, rendering it unable to steer. The orcas then took control, pushing the boat around like a helpless object.

Marine experts are hopeful that by using tracking tags on orcas, future encounters between these animals and boats can be prevented. The scale of these encounters, according to experts, is much larger than commonly realized.

Since the first reports of these incidents off the coasts of Spain and Portugal in 2020, more than 250 boats have been damaged, and three have even sunk. Out of the region’s 35 orcas, fifteen have been identified as responsible. Among them, a female named White Gladis is believed to have “taught” others to attack passing vessels after she herself collided with a boat.

Experts theorize that White Gladis may have experienced a traumatic event, such as colliding with a boat or becoming entangled in illegal fishing, which altered her behaviour defensively. This traumatized orca is thought to be the catalyst for the behaviour of physical contact with boats. While experts do not interpret this as deliberate teaching by the orcas, the behaviour has spread vertically among the young through imitation and later horizontally among the orcas, as they consider it significant in their lives.

The behaviour of the orcas has baffled scientists, initially leading to theories suggesting it could be related to food scarcity or the disruption caused by the resumption of nautical activities following the pandemic. Some experts have also considered the possibility of it being playful behaviour. The exact cause and motivations behind the behaviour are still being investigated.

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