Unusual orca behaviour off Scotland draws comparisons with spate of attacks in Strait of Gibraltar
An orca continually rammed into a yacht off Scotland’s Shetland Isles in the North Sea – the first reported incident of its kind in northern waters. The unusual behaviour has been compared to the recently highlighted spate of more than 250 incidents in three years in the Strait of Gibraltar and Portugal.
The vessel, sailing from Lerwick to Bergen, Norway, was manned by Dr Wim Rutten, a 72-year-old retired Dutch physicist who was fishing for mackerel with a single line before the orca hit the yacht’s stern.
‘What I felt [was] most frightening was the very loud breathing of the animal,’ Rutten said. ‘The orca stayed behind the boat looking for the keel. Then he disappeared … but came back at fast speed, twice or thrice … and circled a bit.’
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The behaviour of attacking boats has been a regular occurrence in the Strait of Gibraltar and off Portugal, where scientists have theorised a number of reasons for the attacks – including an injury sustained by a boat to an orca known as ‘White Gladis’, who in turn may have triggered a behavioural change in other orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar subpopulation.
Only last month, three orcas attacked a Swiss sailing yacht off the coast of Gibraltar, damaging it so severely that the crew were forced to abandon ship before the vessel sank.
Although the Strait of Gibraltar subpopulation is more than 2000 miles away from where the Shetland attack took place, Dr Conor Ryan, scientific advisor to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, does not rule out the possibility that these orcas may have picked up the behaviour from the far-away orcas. Ryan theorises that there may be ‘highly mobile pods that could transmit this behaviour a long distance’.
‘‘I’d be reluctant to say it cannot be learned from [the southern population],’ Ryan continues. ‘It’s possible that this ‘fad’ is leapfrogging through the various pods/communities.’
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