Posted on 07/30/2026 4:43:13 PM PDT by BenLurkin
A pod of killer whales has sunk another yacht off northwestern Spain, reinforcing a bizarre pattern of vessel encounters that has stretched on for more than six years along the Iberian coast.
In the incident, reported Friday (July 24), the whales destroyed the rudder of a 46-foot-long Swedish-flagged yacht off Galicia in northwestern Spain, forcing the two people aboard to send a mayday call. A Spanish coastguard vessel towed them to safety...
The incident came after several other encounters in the same waters earlier that week, including one in which a pleasure craft called the Idem sank near Estaca de Bares, the northernmost point of the Iberian Peninsula...after the killer whales, also known as orcas (Orcinus orca), destroyed its rudder.
...
Researchers have identified roughly 15 individual killer whales involved in these incidents, out of an Iberian subpopulation of fewer than 50. The group is so small that the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as critically endangered, as it is dependent mainly on Atlantic bluefin tuna for its food.
The family-like cluster is thought to be led by a female known as White Gladis. That name comes from an early theory researchers themselves once floated: that White Gladis suffered some kind of traumatic run-in with a boat and that the encounter flipped a behavioral switch, with her being the first in the group to start ramming rudders.
...
So why do orcas go after the boats?
Orcas are some of the most social animals on the planet, and social animals pick up habits from one another the way trends spread through a friend group. Researchers describe the behavior as socially learned — young orcas appear to watch adults ram a rudder and then try it themselves, and the habit has spread through the group over time.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
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It was a slow morning.
Shoot them.
It’s obvious they’re feral killer whales.
/s
Britain needs to hire them to take out the Channel crossers.
Continually bringing harm or death to any of the pod(s) invites retaliation / response. Can’t say enough about the fact of their being extremely intelligent and have memories thicker than blood.
That’s what I was thinking. I wonder what some yacht did to a pod and maybe the info got passed on. But I also think some sort of play/game possibility is plausible.
Freegards
Practice, Practice,Practice!
Perhaps they can start overturning migrant vessels?
I guess they’re after that sinking feeling.
Train them to flip over illegals boats coming over from Africa.
Because they can. 😉
Note to self: Carry along a compressed air canister and a loaded rifle.
I wonder how flash bang grenades would affect them.
Can we get them to go after the boats full of “migrants”?
“So why do orcas go after the boats?” Orcas got to orca now, get your boat out of my ocean.
Awesome...good observation!!
“why are they still doing this after 6 years?”
Their hungry.
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