Learn killer whales to sink yachts in front of Gibraltar

A valley killer whale named Gladis leads Orca gangs to fight with yachts around Gibraltar and has already sunk three boats in Europe.

It may read like something from Moby Dick, but in this case the truth is more strange than Herman Melvilles Fictional story of the white whale.

researchers assume that a female orca called White Gladis will be wild on revenge after being traumatized by a collision with a boat or was caught in illegal fishing nets.

gladis' attacks are now imitated by the rest of the sword walks population, which her rugged leader learned how to ram ships.

"Critical moment of agony"

"This traumatized Orca triggered this behavior of physical contact with the boat," said Alfredo López Fernandez, biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Atlantic Orca working group.

This "critical moment of agony" made Gladis aggressively boat, and this aggressive behavior is now copied by other orcas, which are social animals and can learn from each other, he told Wordsidekick.com.

On May 2, six of the Apex predators bounced into the fuselage of the Bavaria 46, who was traveling in the street of Gibraltar near Tanger in Morocco.

Skipper Greg Blackburn from Leeds had already struggled with "heavy weather" with wind speeds of 25 to 30 knots and a rolling waves of two to three meters when the whales touched its rudder with two huge bumps.

"At this point we thought: 'There is definitely something down there'," he told 9News. "After that we saw her for the first time."

Two large orcas had carried out the first ram attacks, but appeared as another four whales, Mr. Blackburn knew that there would be trouble.

'Auweh'

"When the main capsule appeared, it looked like a matriarch with a calf was," he said. "I thought 'Oh dear' when I saw her." At that point you can't do much. ”

"After reading the reports and knew what was going on, I just thought that a trip was going now."

The skipper dropped the main rule and tried to make the boat "as boring as possible". Finally, the whales lost interest, but caused considerable damage of several thousand pounds. The boat had to limp back to the port.

Two days later, a group of three swords of the swords attacked a third sailboat on May 4 in the Segraltar in the Meerenge of the Gibraltar off the coast of Spain and sank it, beating the helm. There was a similar attack in November last year off the coast of Portugal.

Werner Schaufelberger, the captain, said he saw how the two smaller whales imitated the ram tactics of the largest of the three orcas.

full power

"The little ones shook the rudder in the back, while the big one drove backwards and rammed the ship off the side with full force," he told the German magazine Yacht.

"The two small orcas observed the technology of the larger one and with a slight start they also slam on board."

The Spanish coast guard saved the crew of the damaged ship, but the boat dropped at the port entrance of Barbate after it was dragged ashore.

The first reports on aggressive orcas off the Iberian coast began in May 2020. In September of the same year, the Spanish authorities prohibited sailing boats with a length of more than 50 feet, to protect from the northwest tip of the country in sea after 29 attacks by Orca rabids were registered.

The attacks have become increasingly common, according to a study published in June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal Science.

The attacks are mainly directed against sailing boats and run according to the same pattern. The orcas approach the rear and hit the rudder before losing interest as soon as they have stopped the boat.