“Three killer whales came straight at us and started hitting the rudders. It is impressive to see these very beautiful animals, but it has also been a dangerous time for the whole crew”. This is how Jelmer van Beek, skipper of one of the sailboats that participated on Thursday, June 22, in the Ocean Race competition, in the Strait of Gibraltar, expressed himself. “It was terrifying!” he exclaims in the recorded video. His testimony is another example of how killer whales have become a headache for sailors and administrations.
These cetaceans continue to star in collisions and skirmishes at sea. The data record an increase in incidents since the beginning of the year compared to 2022. Everything indicates that the new practice of chasing sailboats and pushing the rudders until they break continues to expand.
The episodes of interaction between killer whales and boats, mainly sailboats, began in the summer of 2020, and have taken place both in the Strait of Gibraltar and in Galician waters. On Monday, the Tarifa Maritime Rescue Center had to rescue the two crew members of the sailboat Julia High Coast Swe that was left without a rudder after suffering an interaction with killer whales.
These sea animals continue to baffle everyone. In view of the situation caused, and to guarantee safety in navigation, the Administration is launching a protocol and has published the new recommendations that should be followed by the crews of the ships when the killer whales approach. Until now, it was advised that the captain stop the boat’s engine and notify the authorities to proceed with the towing. The Administration now indicates that in the face of the appearance of killer whales “it is more preferable to sail by motor than by sail, avoiding stopping the boat”, and also asks to sail “as close to the coast as possible, where it is less likely to encounter groups of killer whales”.
“The administrations recommend going out on their feet”, expressively summarizes Renaud de Stephanis, coordinator and president of Circe (Conservation, Information and Studies on Cetaceans), which collaborates with the Administration. “We changed the recommendations because the proposal to stop the engines was not taking effect. Orcas do not stop interacting even if the engine is stopped”, a spokesman for the Ministry of Transport (competent in maritime navigation) justifies the decision.
In an attempt to help navigation, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition (in collaboration with Circe) has begun to signal the areas of risk. For this reason, he has marked one of the killer whales, so satellite information is available on the location of the group and a weekly map of the area where the cetaceans have been moving is drawn up to disseminate this information for surfers and reduce the risk of interaction.
“If someone dares to pass through these hot areas, orcas break the boat; on the other hand, if you stay away from them there is less chance that your boat will be broken”, says Renaud de Stepha-nis to endorse the methodology for delimiting these critical areas.
The sub-delegate of the Government in Cádiz, José Pacheco, stated on Monday that the Maritime Administration is considering delimiting “certain areas” and prohibiting the navigation of recreational boats in these areas, because they are “places of passage” for cetaceans.
In the summer of 2021, the Cádiz Maritime Authority prohibited sailing in Barbate cove for sailboats under 15 meters. However, the measure taken previously has not “been shown to be effective”, according to sources from the Ministry of Transport. “The Captaincy has not yet taken this measure; and it is possible that it will continue without applying restrictions”, add the same Transport sources.
The behavior of these cetaceans continues to cause debate among scientists. Renaud de Stephanis attributes these collisions “to a childish game of the killer whales” which, little by little, has been transmitted to the rest of the individuals”. His explanation is that “the only goal in the life of killer whales is to hunt tuna” and “anything they have in the sea amuses them”, according to what he says he personally verified, observing their games “with plastics, with fish moon” and now with the rudder of the ships.
Renaud de Stephanis has used underwater cameras to understand what exactly happens between orcas and fictitious rudders. “We found out what happens: orcas push the rudder with their nose, this causes the rudder to break due to the leverage effect,” he says.
In its conclusions in October 2020, the Working Group of the Atlantic Orca (GTOA), launched two hypotheses about these behaviors, remembers Alfredo López, member of the GTOA and of the Coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals (Cemma). The first hypothesis is that orcas “have invented something new and are repeating it”. But a second hypothesis suggested that these animals have developed an aversive behavior, a kind of trauma related to the speed of the boats. That is to say, after having had a bad experience (a collision with a group of young killer whales that were injured in the Strait), the presence of a sailboat gives rise to “preventive behavior that consists in stopping its speed through the manipulation of the rudder”.
“We don’t know which of these two theories is correct, and even if it’s the second one we don’t know what could have been the first event that triggered it,” says López.
The working group did not rule out that this was a behavior induced by the interest and curiosity of the killer whales, since “since they touch moving parts of the ship, they can move or even stop a large object in motion”.
Orcas are not showing an aggressive attitude in all this, although they may break something. Cetaceans are not vindictive”, notes López. The research indicated that Gladis Blanca was probably the one who initiated the interactions, as in 2020 she was the only adult doing this, in the middle of a group of young killer whales.
Lori Marino, a cetacean neuroscientist and president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, says the fun theory makes more sense to her. “They are very intelligent and inquisitive animals, and they seem to be attracted to the bottom of boats and the parts that stick out. Orcas are cultural beings and often they start a fad and that fad spreads through the group,” he told the BBC.
The GTOA has detected 88 interactions between January and June of this year (while last year in the same period there were 62 accounted for). The Tarifa Maritime Rescue Center has had to assist and tow 29 sailboats this year that had encounters with killer whales in the Strait. This number almost doubles the 14 rescues they had to do in all of 2022 and the 13 in 2021.
