Posted on 08/02/2024 12:00:50 PM PDT by Red Badger
Ayacht navigating the Strait of Gibraltar recently sank after a pod of orcas launched a dramatic attack, marking the latest incident in a series of troubling encounters with these killer whales.
Robert Powell, the British yachtsman affected, said that "these (orcas) were not playing" and described the attack as "well-organized and coordinated" in a social media post.
Powell and two other occupants of the yacht, called Bonhomie William, had to be rescued by Spanish coastguards on Wednesday 24 after orcas disabled the vessel's steering and subjected it to severe buffeting.
However, Volker Deecke, a professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Cumbria, told Newsweek that there is "no evidence whatsoever" indicating that this behavior is aggressive or that orcas are deliberately trying to sink boats they encounter.
A spokesperson for the Spanish Coastguard Service said in a statement: "Yesterday evening a yacht called Bonhomme William which was two miles off Camarinal Cape between Tarifa and Barbate reported that after interaction with orcas she needed to be towed as her steering system was inoperative."
Powell and his two crew members first reached out to Spanish authorities for a tow after the initial orca attack disabled their rudder. Spanish officials began preparing the rescue boat Salvamar Enif, but Bonhomme William's crew later reported that the orcas had returned and the vessel was taking on water.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
Authorize a small yacht of marksmen and we can have this resolved i a couple weeks.
They’re looking for tasty humans?
Global Warming. They’re part of “the earth crying out in pain.”
Fascinating. They learn and remember and teach.
It HAS to be climate change.
I doubt this is anything new.
They are exposed to fishing vessels which they correctly perceive as competitors.
They only have so much intelligence and if any boat appears small enough that they believe they can take it on, they will instinctively attack the competitor.
Really. A .308 would work fine.
They really need to just kill this pod of whales and be done with it.
If this behavior starts to matriculate to other pods, this could get bad/lethal for boaters all over the world.
Boats are crunchy on the outside with a gooey middle.
In seriousness, it sounds like they are just being bullies.
Time to knock them down a peg.
I didn’t know Orcas were Democrats…
Hunt them, kill them, cut the crap.
They are defending their pack from strangers like any other pack animals would.
Leave em alone! I need the entertainment!
Only the strong survive!
What if they have their own nukes hidden in the bottom of the sea.................
We obviously have been negligent in keeping their populations in check. Time to sharpen the harpoons and stoke the fat rendering fires. The Japanese could still do the job if the west has become too feminized.
The Alpha of this pod started the attacks on surface vessels for unknown reasons. This has been talked about for several months.
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