Killer whales have been mangling and tearing the rudders off sailboats near Portugal and Spain. Some scientists think it might just be a fad — a kind of 'devious licks' for young orcas.
August 22, 2022Ester Kristine Storkson was asleep on her father’s small yacht earlier this month, sailing off the coast of France, when she was violently awakened.
They were “ramming the boat,” Storkson says. “They [hit] us repeatedly … giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack.” After about 15 minutes, the orcas broke off, leaving father and daughter to assess the damage. They stuck a GoPro camera in the water, she says, and could see that “approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent.”For any vessel, losing steering at sea is a serious matter and can be dangerous in adverse conditions andinto port after orcas destroyed their rudders.
That is a conundrum. Up to now, scientists have assumed that only a few animals are involved in these encounters and that they are all from the same pod, de Stephanis says.