Geoff: A small group of orcas is
causing a lot of damage to boats
off the iberian peninsula,
raising questions about why the
orcas are doing it.
Stephanie sy looked into it and
has this report.
Stephanie: In the middle of the
night last October, artur
napoleao was sailing miles off
the coast of Portugal to deliver
a boat to a client.
As a professional skipper and
sail instructor, it's a journey
he's taken many times before.
>> At 4:00 A.M., it was my turn
to go to sleep.
So I went down, I start taking
my nap and 30 minutes later,
boom.
Stephanie: He ran up to the deck
to find the boat surrounded by a
pod of orcas.
>> They mess around for 5
minutes and then they went to
another boat more far away from
me, like one, two miles.
Stephanie but the pod returned,
: Not once, but three times, the
visits spanning over several
hours, well after sunrise.
>> I got really scared until I
realized until I saw the orcas
and how gentle they were when I
stopped the boat.
Stephanie: In the past three
years, hundreds of boat and orca
interactions have been reported
off the coasts of Portugal,
Spain, and Morocco.
According to the Spanish
research group gtoa, in 2022
there were 207 reported
interactions in the strait of
gibraltar alone, a narrow
waterway that separates Spain
and Morocco.
And the meetings are not always
gentle.
Just last month, killer whales
surrounding a boat sailing
through the strait of gibraltar
were met with loud noises, an
attempt by the crew to scare
them off.
The pod rammed the boat
continuously for over an hour,
managing to remove the rudder.
With seawater gushing into the
boat, the experienced crew of
four issued a mayday call, and
were eventually towed to shore,
unharmed.
In another recent instance off
the coast of Spain, three orcas
repeatedly struck a yacht,
causing it to sink entirely
after Spanish coast guards
rescued the crew on board.
>> We are having one incident
every day, on average, okay,
there are days we have two or
three.
Stephanie: To better track these
events, rui Alves started this
website last year to log orca
encounters.
It connects a network of sailors
who share geographic locations
of sightings and attacks along
the Spanish and Portuguese
coasts.
This map shows incidents
reported just this month.
>> For me it was like, if you
spread the word about something
that happens in an area, people
will avoid that area.
Maybe they will keep the boat
and say I don't sail today
because there are many orcas at
that point, I will sail tomorrow
or maybe I will go in another
direction.
Stephanie: Orcas living near the
iberian peninsula are a distinct
subpopulation, and a critically
endangered one.
But why these orcas are
repeatedly damaging boats is
something experts are trying to
understand.
One theory making the rounds?
Revenge.
Some scientists believe an orca
named white Gladis, suffered a
traumatic injury from a boat,
and may be teaching other orcas
how to attack similar vessels.
But Monika Wieland shields,
director of the orca behavior
institute, says that kind of
activity would be
uncharacteristic of the animal
she studies.
Play is a more likely
explanation, she says.
>> It's just not something that
we have seen, for whatever
reason.
They're the top predator in the
ocean.
They're capable of attacking and
killing, you know, all kinds of
species that are around them.
But they have never targeted
that talent or that, you know,
predator like behavior towards
humans.
Stephanie: Despite the "Killer
whale" nickname, orcas are the
largest species in the dolphin
family, and no humans have to
reported major injuries from the
boat confrontations.
For the pbs newshour, I'm
Stephanie sy.