Orcas Continue to Clash with Boats off the Coast of Europe, Reportedly Sinking Two Sailboats
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Multiple sailors off the coast of Europe have found themselves getting too close for comfort with orcas, who are causing a bit of a stir in the region lately.
NPR reported that two boats were reportedly sunk by the animals off the coast of Portugal last month, with other vessels having to be towed back into port after orcas wrecked their rudders.
According to NPR, scientists believe that these interactions occur because the whales seem to enjoy the water pressure given off by boat rudders. When they are at a stop, the animals may become frustrated, which leads to their destructive actions, per Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research (a cetacean research group based in Spain).
Earlier this month, Ester Kristine Storkson and her father experienced one of the more dramatic incidents on record — and one of the furthest away from where they'd more recently been happening.
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Storkson had been asleep on her father's small yacht off the coast of France when she was jolted awake. She found several orcas surrounding the boat, with the steering wheel swinging rapidly and turning the boat in the opposite direction, NPR reported.
The woman said the animals were "ramming the boat," and explained that "they [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack."
She said after about 15 minutes the orcas left, and she and her father assessed what had happened. After lowering a Go-Pro into the water they realized that "approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent."
The father-daughter pair had enough of the rudder to make it back to shore, but it delayed their plan of sailing around the world.
Scientists had been working off of the idea that just a few animals had been involved in these incidents, NPR said, noting that they are social creatures who often follow their own "trends" of activities that they participate in and eventually tire or grow out of.
An interactive map curated by Orca Ibérica, a conservation group working with orcas in the Iberian Peninsula, shows more than one-dozen instances of the animals' interactions with boats this month — most of which were clustered off the northwestern coast of Spain. The Storksons' episode seems to indicate more than one pod may be responsible for these behaviors.
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The organization said that as whales appear to be moving north, specifically near the Galicia region, they are advising the public against "navigating this area at night to reduce risks and rescue difficulties."
NPR also noted that while the animals can be aggressive in these incidents, there is "no record of an orca killing a human in the wild."
