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You're listening to a Frequency

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Podcast Network production.

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In today's environment of endangered

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species, climate change, deforestation,

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overfishing, toxic waste, and everything

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else that can be laid at our

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feet, us humans tend

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to like stories of nature

0:23

fighting back. It's

0:25

heroic. At this point, it

0:27

very much seems like David vs. Goliath.

0:30

It's the stuff of science fiction movies

0:33

and suspenseful thrillers, and

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it's easy to root for until

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it actually happens to you. Orcas

0:48

are attacking and sinking boats

0:51

off the coast of southern Spain. We

0:54

are in a mistake in channel one

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six. We need assistance immediately. We need assistance

0:58

immediately. We are sinking. We are sinking.

1:04

That's a sailboat off the coast

1:07

of Spain,

1:08

late at night, calling desperately

1:10

for help

1:12

as the boat sinks. But

1:14

sinks sounds a little too passive.

1:17

The boat was sunk in

1:20

a manner that certainly looked purposeful

1:23

by a small group of orcas, and

1:25

it wasn't the first time. Almost

1:28

as much as we love fiction about

1:30

nature fighting back, we love to

1:32

write our own narratives on

1:34

top of animal behavior, which

1:37

is, of course, why you're now seeing

1:40

breathless headlines about orcas

1:42

fighting back, turning on humans,

1:45

getting their revenge. All

1:47

of that, very human emotions,

1:50

all

1:50

searching for a motive when

1:53

we don't even know if one exists. The

1:56

boats are being attacked on

1:59

purpose.

1:59

and the behavior seems to be increasing

2:02

in frequency. So yeah, we

2:05

do have to ask why. What's

2:07

changed in these animals?

2:10

Is there a reason for the behavior?

2:12

Is it instinct? Is it us?

2:15

Is it just whimsy? Bjorkas

2:19

aren't talking, so we have

2:21

to look a little deeper. I'm

2:28

Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is the big story.

2:32

Stephanie Pappas is a freelance science

2:34

writer. She investigated the

2:36

orcas' behavior in a piece for Scientific

2:38

American. Hello, Stephanie. Hi there.

2:41

I'm gonna ask you before we get going, and we will

2:43

get into the details and the science and

2:46

this behavior, but first,

2:48

how weird is this phenomenon? This

2:51

phenomenon of orcas attacking boats is

2:53

very weird. It's extremely rare.

2:55

There's a few scattered cases where one

2:58

orca has attacked a boat.

3:00

I think maybe a couple happened in the 70s, but

3:04

this is the only place on Earth that's happening

3:06

right now, and even there, over several

3:08

years, there's only been three

3:11

boats that have actually sunk.

3:13

So take me back to the beginning. When did we first

3:16

start noticing this anomalous

3:18

behavior in the Strait of Gibraltar, like in this

3:20

region?

3:21

So the first incident in this region

3:23

happened in May 2020, but

3:26

it didn't really start picking up until later that

3:28

summer in July, and

3:31

most commonly, what would happen is these

3:33

small groups of orcas would come up to a boat,

3:36

and these are usually pretty small boats, often sailboats,

3:39

and they would start going after

3:41

the rudder and ramming up against it, and that

3:43

would spin the boat, and

3:45

in some cases, they would ram at the hull

3:47

as well, which would probably be quite

3:50

scary if you're on this boat, but

3:52

most of the time, they're targeting the rudders, sometimes

3:54

scraping at them with their teeth,

3:56

and they're quite good at breaking those rudders, and so,

3:58

I'll start with that. Alfredo Lopez,

4:00

who is an Orca researcher at the Atlantic

4:03

Orca Working Group in Spain, told

4:06

me that almost 20% of the time

4:08

that the Orcas actually contact a boat,

4:11

they damage it enough so the boat is no longer

4:13

navigable. They can't sail it. If this began

4:16

all the way back in 2020, why

4:18

did it only start receiving this

4:20

kind of coverage in recent

4:22

months? Because it feels like now, even just over

4:24

the last several weeks, we've

4:27

heard a bunch of these reports. Has this just been happening

4:29

steadily and we haven't paid attention?

4:30

Yes. You know, some

4:33

newspapers did report on the first attacks

4:35

back in 2020. And

4:38

last year, Lopez and his team did a study

4:40

on those 2020 attacks that got a little

4:42

bit of coverage, but it was mostly in the science

4:44

press. And I don't know

4:46

why it's taking off now. I would say maybe third

4:49

time's a charm. This is the third time that they've

4:51

actually sunk a boat. And maybe

4:53

that starts to feel like a trend when you have three

4:56

instances. How often

4:57

is the behavior happening? You mentioned three

4:59

sunken boats. It began in 2020. Do

5:02

we have like a

5:04

full on tally of just how

5:06

many attacks there have been, how common

5:09

it is?

5:09

Yeah. So this is still very

5:11

uncommon. The chances of getting attacked by an Orca

5:14

in the Strait of Gibraltar is very low. That's

5:17

good. Yeah. You have to understand that this

5:19

is a very high traffic area for watercraft.

5:22

You know, boats are in and out of here. Lopez

5:25

and his team say that the Orcas

5:27

are only contacting maybe one

5:30

out of every hundred boats in the area. And

5:32

a lot of times they're not damaging those

5:35

boats. Or maybe they're not even having direct contact.

5:37

Orcas might come up to the boat,

5:39

but not touch it. Since 2020,

5:42

the Orca working group has recorded 505 reactions

5:45

and not all of those are contact. And

5:50

when they do contact the boat, maybe it's a

5:53

few seconds, but sometimes it can

5:55

be over an hour of them bumping up against the

5:57

boat and they'll typically

5:59

approach. under the boat so the crew doesn't know they're

6:01

there and then start kind of nudging

6:05

it, pushing at that rudder.

6:07

If the captain tries to push

6:09

the rudder back, they'll often push back harder.

6:12

And once the crew stops the boat or

6:15

if the rudder breaks, they're typically losing

6:17

interest in swimming away. Most of

6:19

the time,

6:20

they're not interested in going after the boat

6:23

once it's not moving anymore. That's

6:25

fascinating. Has anybody been hurt in

6:27

any of these attacks? Luckily, no one's been

6:30

hurt. And the orcas don't

6:32

seem interested in attacking or hurting

6:34

the humans on these boats. In one case,

6:37

people who were on board one of the sailboats

6:39

that sank, they had to get into a lifeboat. And

6:41

the orcas didn't bother them at all, despite the fact they're

6:43

on a very small boat, very vulnerable.

6:46

And we don't have any cases of

6:48

orcas killing people in the wild.

6:50

What kind of orca population are

6:52

we talking about here? And can you describe

6:55

them a bit? And their usual

6:58

habitat, you mentioned it's a really busy

7:00

shipping area. Is that typical?

7:02

What is it like? Yeah,

7:04

so this area has

7:06

been shared by orcas and people for

7:09

as long as people have been sailing.

7:11

The Mediterranean region

7:13

has been an area where there have been people boating

7:16

for thousands of years. And we

7:18

have records going back of people reporting

7:20

running into killer whales in the area.

7:23

So who's there now? This

7:25

is a really small, critically endangered

7:28

actually, subpopulation of orcas.

7:31

They're separate from the other populations

7:33

in the Northeast Atlantic. They kind of stay

7:35

in their own bubble, I guess.

7:38

And as of the last time there was an official census

7:40

that was in 2011, there were

7:42

actually only 39 orcas in that whole subpopulation.

7:45

And what they're doing there

7:47

is mainly eating bluefin tuna.

7:50

That's their favorite food. People

7:53

also fish for bluefin tuna. So that sometimes

7:55

brings them close to fishing boats.

7:58

Other than that,

8:00

They're doing what orcas do, which is raise their

8:02

young, hunting, and

8:04

the usual orca things. Okay,

8:07

first of all, is it all of them doing this, all 39

8:09

orcas, or just a handful of them, or do we even

8:11

know?

8:12

No, I don't think so. As of 2020,

8:15

there were actually only about nine orcas

8:17

out of the whole group regularly doing this.

8:20

Maybe more have caught on since then, but it doesn't

8:23

seem like it's the whole pod. One

8:25

of the groups in 2020 was a group of

8:28

three juveniles and was sometimes joined

8:30

by a fourth juvenile. And then another was

8:32

a group that was led by a female adult that researchers

8:35

called Glottosplanka. And

8:37

one of her offspring and two of her sisters

8:39

would join her as well. Let's get

8:41

to the big question here. Why

8:44

on earth would an orca subpopulation

8:47

start doing this?

8:48

So scientists have two theories

8:50

as to why the orcas are attacking these boats. And

8:53

so one is that the orcas might have had a bad

8:55

experience with a boat. Like maybe one of them

8:58

got struck by a boat, maybe one

9:00

of them became entangled in fishing line.

9:02

And the researchers don't

9:05

know which orca might

9:07

have had this experience. They suspect

9:09

it could have been Glottosplanka because she

9:12

was the only adult in the initial attacks.

9:15

But they

9:15

don't have any proof that she was actually injured.

9:18

There's no record of it. It's just that

9:20

in general, a lot of the orcas in this area do have

9:23

scars from rope or have been

9:25

hit by boats because sometimes they will come

9:27

up to the fishing boats

9:30

and try to snag tuna off of the fishing

9:32

lines. So

9:34

that does bring them close. And sometimes they get wrapped

9:37

up and that might be

9:39

the case that now they think there's something

9:42

bad about these boats and they want to keep them away.

9:44

So let me ask one question about that

9:46

before we get to the other theory, because this is something

9:49

that I've been wondering about.

9:51

How would they know to go after the propellers?

9:54

We do not know why they're going

9:56

after the rudders. Do they understand

9:58

what the rudder does?

9:59

I don't know if you can see

10:02

inside the Orca's mind. I think one

10:04

theory is simply the rudder sticks down and

10:06

it moves and it's kind of like, oh,

10:08

a toy, that's interesting.

10:10

It may not be that they're actually trying to disable

10:13

the boats, they might just be messing around. Okay,

10:15

second theory, which is the weirder one.

10:18

Tell me about it. So the second

10:20

theory is that this is just a fad.

10:23

Orca's are these super playful

10:25

and curious animals, and sometimes

10:28

they just kind of do stuff for no reason. And

10:31

just like in humans, it's often the teen orcas

10:33

who tend to start fads. And we know there are some juveniles

10:36

involved in this behavior.

10:37

I can't believe we're talking about whale fads, but

10:40

explain how it works and what kind of stuff they

10:42

do. Well, I mean, just like humans,

10:44

orcas are social animals. So they live

10:46

in these family groups and these pods and they

10:49

work together to hunt for food.

10:51

So they're wired to learn from each other. Adults

10:54

are always teaching their young how to hunt

10:56

and

10:57

they're smart, like you said. So they often

10:59

are teaching each other new tricks. Like I read about

11:01

one case where an orca figured

11:04

out that it could go up to the surface of the ocean

11:06

and regurgitate the fish it had eaten.

11:09

And that would lure down seagulls

11:11

and other birds.

11:13

And then the orca could catch those birds. Smart.

11:16

And it taught other orcas in its pod

11:18

how to do the same. My favorite orca

11:20

trend, I think the funniest, is the

11:22

salmon hat. So in 1987,

11:25

this juvenile orca

11:28

off the coast of Washington state

11:30

started swimming around with a dead salmon

11:32

on its head for no apparent reason.

11:35

Right. And all the other orcas

11:37

thought this looks super cool. So

11:40

for the rest of the summer, salmon hats were all

11:42

the rage in this area, in this

11:44

southern resident population here. And

11:48

after a few months, all the orcas

11:50

just kind of got over it, kind of like humans

11:52

get over Pokemon Go or

11:55

the ice bucket challenge or whatever's on TikTok.

11:58

And then they stopped doing it. Why

12:00

would this be a fad? Because look, the hunting

12:02

thing obviously is super smart and makes

12:04

a lot of sense. The dead salmon thing

12:06

is bizarre, but it's cool. So

12:09

whatever. But you mentioned like they can hurt themselves

12:11

on these boats and against these rudders. So how would

12:14

this catch on?

12:15

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. And I think

12:17

that's part of what's fascinating about

12:19

this is that we don't totally understand

12:21

the orca thought process. They're kind of close

12:24

to us in the sense that they're social, smart

12:26

animals.

12:28

But we don't really understand their motivations. I

12:31

talked to one researcher who said, you

12:33

know, I don't think we're going to know because

12:36

we just don't think the way they think our

12:38

environment is so different from theirs.

12:45

Are researchers is baffled by this and what

12:48

do they make of it in general? I

12:51

would say they're

12:53

baffled in the sense that nobody really

12:55

knows why they're going after boats. But

12:58

they're not necessarily surprised that

13:00

the orcas have taught each other to do this

13:02

because they know that orcas

13:04

teach each other to do things. And they

13:07

also know the orcas are very curious

13:09

and playful

13:12

and interact with their environment. So

13:15

it's not a surprise in the grand scheme of

13:18

orca behavior, but they are concerned

13:20

because the

13:22

concern is that there will be backlash

13:24

against the orcas. It's a critically endangered

13:26

subpopulation. And the

13:28

researchers in Spain, they started this

13:30

working group because they were concerned that people

13:32

might

13:33

start retaliating against the orcas or

13:35

it might affect how people are interacting in the

13:37

water. So the risk is more

13:40

to the orcas than to people in the end.

13:42

If you log

13:42

on to any social

13:44

media site right now where every

13:47

time there is one of these incidents now, it prompts

13:49

a round of like, yes, I'm on Team Orca.

13:51

You know, what does that feel like to you to see

13:53

to see this gain that kind of attention?

13:56

It's very funny because as a science

13:58

reporter, I'm often

13:59

reporting on things that

14:01

my friends in my daily life

14:04

and family have not read about

14:06

or heard about is a niche area. And

14:08

then all of a sudden, everyone's like, did you hear about

14:10

those orcas? And I'm like, yes, I wrote an article

14:13

about those orcas. It really

14:14

has seemed to fascinate people, though, especially

14:16

because as you mentioned, you know, it's only three boats

14:19

and nobody's been hurt, but

14:22

it's making international headlines.

14:24

Yeah, I think people are really drawn

14:26

to these stories that emphasize our vulnerability

14:29

as humans because we're so dominant,

14:31

but we're also these relatively tiny little

14:33

breakable biological organisms.

14:36

And if you can imagine this animal that's longer

14:39

than a pickup truck coming after you in the ocean,

14:41

that's,

14:42

you know, almost something out of a horror

14:44

movie. It's like the plot of Moby

14:46

Dick. So it's a very visceral

14:49

reaction. I think we have to these kinds of stories.

14:51

What should people do if,

14:53

you know, you're on a sailboat in

14:55

that straight and all of a sudden, like you mentioned,

14:58

you know, first they come up and check you

15:00

out. Like we have rules for like, you know,

15:02

a bear attack, you make yourself as big as possible

15:04

or whatever. What do you do when an orc is staring

15:07

at you from the water?

15:08

I don't think there is a specific

15:10

protocol for orcas. From

15:13

what I've read, the Spanish authorities are

15:15

saying, you know, stop the boat and try

15:17

not to look interesting. So don't

15:19

be moving that rudder around, I guess.

15:22

But there isn't really a proven way

15:24

to avoid the orcas once

15:26

they've decided they're going to put you in their sights.

15:29

Could the behavior escalate? What if

15:31

it does? So far, this has

15:33

only been seen in this part of the world,

15:36

and they are a distinct subpopulation.

15:39

So they really may not have a chance to teach

15:41

it to other

15:42

Atlantic orcas because they may not overlap

15:44

all that much.

15:46

But they could certainly keep teaching it to one another,

15:48

and they could certainly keep doing it.

15:50

And so far, there isn't all that much that

15:53

people can do about this. There have

15:55

been warnings in the region

15:57

by the authorities that they should report orcas sightings.

16:00

You know go slow when you're sailing in this area

16:02

if there are sightings to stay away from the orcas

16:06

But there isn't really a proven way that work is

16:08

obviously can come up to your boat without you knowing

16:10

until they're there

16:12

So there's a big open question

16:14

as to what comes next. I'll ask

16:16

this last because you mentioned it Should

16:19

we worry about a backlash

16:22

against these creatures? I'm maybe not

16:24

against these creatures in general, but I

16:27

assume that that straight is pretty important

16:29

Both for pleasure craft and and transportation

16:33

Will the authorities push to do something about

16:35

this if it continues?

16:36

I think that the biggest danger

16:38

is likely to the orcas themselves If

16:42

people feel threatened we can do a lot worse

16:44

to the orcas than they can do to us and

16:47

that could be Individuals deciding

16:50

that they're scared of an orca and you know trying to

16:52

harm one

16:53

So I think the main thing in that area right now

16:56

is education for the people who use

16:58

those waters And also

17:00

just a continual reminder that these

17:02

orcas are not going after people and we

17:04

don't have any cases of

17:07

orcas attacking people

17:09

directly in the wild I Will

17:12

leave you with this though if the first theory

17:14

is correct and the orcas are going after

17:16

the boats because one of them Was injured by

17:19

a boat and as you mentioned Somebody

17:21

in a sailboat gets scared and tries to take matters

17:24

into their own hand and does hurt one

17:26

of these orcas

17:28

Whose fault is what happens next?

17:30

I mean it has to be humans, right? we're

17:32

the ones who are in their environment

17:35

and We're also the ones

17:37

that as smart as orcas are We're

17:39

a little more socially complex

17:42

and we have the ability to avoid that

17:44

region much more than the orcas do

17:46

So Tim orca then I guess

17:48

I'm on Tim orca, although I don't really

17:50

want to be on a sailboat in general So

17:53

it's easy for me to say

17:54

there you go Stephanie. Thank you for explaining this

17:56

to us This was a really interesting conversation

17:58

Thank you

18:03

Stephanie Pappas, writing in Scientific

18:05

American. That was The

18:07

Big Story. If you'd like more, head to thebigstorypodcast.ca.

18:11

If you have any other crazy animal behavior

18:14

stories that you'd like us to investigate, please

18:17

send them along because I love this stuff. And

18:19

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18:22

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18:24

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18:26

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18:28

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18:35

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18:42

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18:44

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18:46

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