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What the Fuck is Wrong with you, Orcas?

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Orca rams boat of Scottish coast 2000 miles away from original attacks

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An orca has attacked a yacht off the coast of Scotland, U.K. — the first time this behavior has been recorded beyond Portuguese and Spanish waters. One expert believes it's a sign the boat-ramming behavior may have "leapfrogged" to a different orca population.

 

The orca (Orcinus orca) in Scotland repeatedly slammed into the boat's stern, where Wim Rutten, who was the only person on the boat, had attached a fishing line to catch mackerel.

 

Rutten said the orca seemed to be "looking for the keel," which is the part of the boat that orcas in Iberian waters have also targeted with ruthless efficiency. "Maybe he just wanted to play," Rutten told The Guardian. "Or look me in the eyes. Or to get rid of the fishing line."

Iberian orcas, a small and endangered population of about 39 animals, have sunk three boats in the last 18 months and damaged over 100 more by ramming into boats and ripping off their rudders. Some experts think an adult female named White Gladis may have survived a traumatic event — such as a boat collision or entrapment in a fishing net — that flipped a behavioral switch and triggered the first attacks.

Scientists have identified 13 orcas — 11 juveniles, White Gladis and another adult called Grey Gladis — that participate in these encounters and, in some cases, follow the boats all the way to port after breaking their rudders.

The behavior appears to be spreading through social learning, with orcas imitating each other and reproducing acts they deem advantageous or interesting in some way, Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist and representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), previously told Live Science.

The latest incident, which occurred on Monday (June 19) off the Shetland Islands in the North Sea, may suggest orcas in the area have acquired the skill from their southern European neighbors.

"It's possible that this 'fad' is leapfrogging through the various pods/communities," Conor Ryan, a scientific adviser to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, told The Guardian. (A fad is a behavior initiated by one or two individuals, which others adopt through social learning and then abandon.)

Although 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) separate orcas in the North Sea from the Iberian population, there might be "highly mobile pods that could transmit this behavior a long distance," Ryan said.

Experts with the GTOA suspect the attacks are linked to human activities at sea. Fishing, noise pollution and boat traffic, "even in an indirect way, are the origin of this behavior," López Fernandez told The Guardian.

The traumatic experience that may have sparked attacks off the Iberian coast was "perhaps related to a fishing boat while hunting tuna,'' Mónica González, a marine biologist working with the GTOA, told Yachting Monthly. 

Every year, Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) pass through the Strait of Gibraltar on their migration path from spawning sites in the Mediterranean Sea to feeding grounds in the eastern Atlantic, according to a report by the European Parliament.

Encounters with orcas could be linked to these migrations, González said.

Bluefin tuna were overfished from the 1980s until 2010, but stocks have now recovered, according to the report. Nevertheless, experts think orcas may perceive boats as a threat to their food supply and survival.

"We think that the other orcas are juveniles and are copying [White Gladis'] behavior because she is an adult and they think that as an adult 'we need to do this to survive,'" González said.

Also, orca males are apparently a bunch of mama's boys.

Orca males are burnouts who let their moms do all the hunting, surprising study finds

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Killer whale mothers are sacrificing their own reproductive prospects to guarantee the future success of their sons.

 

While it's no surprise that mothers make sacrifices for their young, researchers have found that orca (Orcinus orca) mothers are taking the mama's boy notion to the extreme, continuing to care for their sons into adulthood, even if it affects their future chances of reproduction, according to a new study published Feb. 8 in the journal Current Biology.

 

Researchers have found that this doting mother-son relationship is true amongst the 73 resident orcas that currently make up the "southern resident" population, a group that inhabits the waters off the coasts of Washington state and British Columbia. Since 1976, researchers from the Center for Whale Research in Harbor, Washington, have been monitoring this well-studied population and noticed this "bizarre social system" where the mothers continue to hunt for their adult sons, according to a statement. 

Because orca groups are matrilineal, "both the sons and daughters stay within their mom's group for their whole lives in this population of killer whales — and we think in most resident killer whale populations," first author Michael Weiss, research director for the Center for Whale Research, told Live Science. "But the sons especially keep strong social ties with their mothers and are more likely to follow their moms around."

While sticking with their moms may prove beneficial for the males, the daughters, on the other hand, are cut off entirely from prey sharing by their moms once they reach sexual maturity, typically sometime between 6 and 10 years of age, according to the statement.

So, why are mom orcas giving their sons preferential treatment and not their daughters? Researchers think it all comes down to an evolutionary cost/benefit analysis.

"Males are quite a bit bigger than females, so they need more calories and are also a little less maneuverable, so they may have less luck catching fish," Weiss said. "From the mom's point of view, there are some good reasons why they might want to preferentially help their sons. When daughters reproduce, their calf is in the same group as the grandma, and that means there's another mouth to feed in the group that might compete with the female's other offspring. So, there's a cost there to helping your daughter reproduce. Whereas with males, when they have their kids, they're usually born in someone else's group."

He added, "You get the same benefits in terms of evolution, with your genes being passed on to the next generation, without the cost of having another mouth to feed."

However, this coddling of males costs the mothers in the long run. Researchers found a "strong negative correlation" between females' caring for their grown sons and their probability of producing a viable calf. Each surviving son cuts a mother's chances of having a new calf by more than 50% in a given year, according to the statement.

"As an example, a 21-year-old female who doesn't have any kids she's taking care of right now and hasn't reproduced in the previous year, has about a 1 in 5 chance of having a calf," Weiss said. "If that female has one son that she's taking care of, that chance drops to a 1 in 10 chance. By taking care of these sons, the mothers have less of the food resources they need to carry these really costly pregnancies, which makes them much less likely to further reproduce.”

 

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Brian Fantana

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8 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

You think orcas are just as intelligent as humans?

You seem incredulous, but I'm pretty sure it's well established that orcas (and even dolphins) are considered more intelligent than non-human primates, and orcas specifically are (on average) considered as intelligent as the average human teenager. Are they as intelligent as us on average? No, but they're close, and if they were built to be able to use tools, they probably would be.

It's difficult to think of them that way because they look so different than we do, but it's well known that their brains operate very similarly to our own, they socially behave very similarly to humans and have a very similar range of emotion. They also have established vocalized "languages" (I put it in quotes because I am not sure if that's the correct word to use) among pods around the world with multiple identifiable dialects that have been studied extensively.

I'm pretty sure the general consensus among marine biologists is that orcas are really only limited by their morphology (how their bodies are built) in what they are able to accomplish. Their bodies simply aren't built to facilitate human-like speech or, more importantly, use tools, which is a big reason why humans leapfrogged every other species on the planet. Orcas ancestors were land-based (they have a vestigial pelvis and vestigial fingers/toes in their flippers), and had those ancestors not chosen to move to the oceans, they very well may have become a rival species to early hominids on land.

They're really a fascinating creature worth doing a deep dive on if you're actually interested.

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G650

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14 hours ago, Not that Bob said:

This may be the best thread I've ever read on the intertrons. And that Akhlut. Yeah. Fuck that.

I'll point you to the submarine thread

1 minute ago, Celery Man said:

any good podcasts

Denzel Washington GIF

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5 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

You seem incredulous, but I'm pretty sure it's well established that orcas (and even dolphins) are considered more intelligent than non-human primates, and orcas specifically are (on average) considered as intelligent as the average human teenager. Are they as intelligent as us on average? No, but they're close, and if they were built to be able to use tools, they probably would be.

It's difficult to think of them that way because they look so different than we do, but it's well known that their brains operate very similarly to our own, they socially behave very similarly to humans and have a very similar range of emotion. They also have established vocalized "languages" (I put it in quotes because I am not sure if that's the correct word to use) among pods around the world with multiple identifiable dialects that have been studied extensively.

I'm pretty sure the general consensus among marine biologists is that orcas are really only limited by their morphology (how their bodies are built) in what they are able to accomplish. Their bodies simply aren't built to facilitate human-like speech or, more importantly, use tools, which is a big reason why humans leapfrogged every other species on the planet. Orcas ancestors were land-based (they have a vestigial pelvis and vestigial fingers/toes in their flippers), and had those ancestors not chosen to move to the oceans, they very well may have become a rival species to early hominids on land.

They're really a fascinating creature worth doing a deep dive on if you're actually interested.

I will look into it.  Do you think Finding Nemo is a fairly accurate depiction of the world of sea creatures?  Let me know any other documentaries you would recommend.  

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That was at least a 5.  But here are few points to elaborate:

In the 17th century Descartes wrote:

It is very remarkable that there are none so depraved and stupid, without even excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts; while, on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same. 
 

Despite what you may have read or seen motivated by behavioralism ideology, the above remains true.  Only humans use language in the way we do, which relies on hierarchically structured expressions.  All other animal communication methods, including those of birds, dolphins, and apes, have been found to be based on simpler rules of linear order.  Consider the  sentence: I need to take my car to the shop, hopefully before Friday, to get it fixed.  What word does “fixed” refer to in this sentence?  The words in a human language sentence can refer to other words that are not right next to it (i.e. not in linear order).
 

Now consider this sentence:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It's not a concise sentence, but any English speaking high school student can read it and know what it means.  Here is what a diagram of this sentence looks like:
 

Diagramming Sentences

How are humans able to parse sentences with this complexity with such little effort?  The reason is that we have a language device in our minds that is unique among the animal kingdom.  This is our advantage over the orcas.  Not thumbs.   

Here are some other distinctive features of human language:

Recursion - Sentences can be placed within other sentences and can reference themselves.
“Mark likes cats.”
“Jill thinks that Mark likes cats.”
“This sentence is pointless.”

Displacement - We can reference things that aren’t present spatially or temporally. 
“Where did I leave my wallet?” This feature is missing from communication in the animal kingdom.

Modality Independence – We can use our language via speech, writing, gestures (e.g. sign language), even through tactile features (e.g. braille). We can receive and understand language through multiple senses and express it through numerous methods. 
 

Here are some other things humans are capable of achieving:

Leave the planet, travel to deepest part of the sea, split the atom, harness various forms of energy and convert to electricity, write novels, design and build computers, shitpost on the internet, distill alcohol, make art, understand art, think about abstract concepts, write songs, play music on instruments.

Orcas do some impressive things in the animal kingdom.  Like bees and ants, they work in groups and have specialized tasks.  They also know how to knock seals off ice, and have now figured out how to bite sail boat rudders.  


 

  

 

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1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

I had to diagram the Declaration of Independence in junior high, so this hits close to home.

The whole thing?  That's a tough assignment for middle school.  

15 minutes ago, Kennythetiger said:

Um. About that second one…. 

How far down do you think an orca can dive?  They can't even make it half way to average ocean depth.  They are getting nowhere close to the deepest parts of the sea.  

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mchookem

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2 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

That was at least a 5.  But here are few points to elaborate:

In the 17th century Descartes wrote:

It is very remarkable that there are none so depraved and stupid, without even excepting idiots, that they cannot arrange different words together, forming of them a statement by which they make known their thoughts; while, on the other hand, there is no other animal, however perfect and fortunately circumstanced it may be, which can do the same. 
 

Despite what you may have read or seen motivated by behavioralism ideology, the above remains true.  Only humans use language in the way we do, which relies on hierarchically structured expressions.  All other animal communication methods, including those of birds, dolphins, and apes, have been found to be based on simpler rules of linear order.  Consider the  sentence: I need to take my car to the shop, hopefully before Friday, to get it fixed.  What word does “fixed” refer to in this sentence?  The words in a human language sentence can refer to other words that are not right next to it (i.e. not in linear order).
 

Now consider this sentence:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

It's not a concise sentence, but any English speaking high school student can read it and know what it means.  Here is what a diagram of this sentence looks like:
 

Diagramming Sentences

How are humans able to parse sentences with this complexity with such little effort?  The reason is that we have a language device in our minds that is unique among the animal kingdom.  This is our advantage over the orcas.  Not thumbs.   

Here are some other distinctive features of human language:

Recursion - Sentences can be placed within other sentences and can reference themselves.
“Mark likes cats.”
“Jill thinks that Mark likes cats.”
“This sentence is pointless.”

Displacement - We can reference things that aren’t present spatially or temporally. 
“Where did I leave my wallet?” This feature is missing from communication in the animal kingdom.

Modality Independence – We can use our language via speech, writing, gestures (e.g. sign language), even through tactile features (e.g. braille). We can receive and understand language through multiple senses and express it through numerous methods. 
 

Here are some other things humans are capable of achieving:

Leave the planet, travel to deepest part of the sea, split the atom, harness various forms of energy and convert to electricity, write novels, design and build computers, shitpost on the internet, distill alcohol, make art, understand art, think about abstract concepts, write songs, play music on instruments.

Orcas do some impressive things in the animal kingdom.  Like bees and ants, they work in groups and have specialized tasks.  They also know how to knock seals off ice, and have now figured out how to bite sail boat rudders.  


 

  

 

 

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Brian Fantana

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1 hour ago, axiom of foundation said:

How are humans able to parse sentences with this complexity with such little effort?  The reason is that we have a language device in our minds that is unique among the animal kingdom.  This is our advantage over the orcas.  Not thumbs.

 

On a serious note, you do realize these things go hand in hand, right? We evolved this ability because we evolved the ability to use tools and also utilize language, thus developing a written language and further evolving our ability to use and parse language. An early hunter-gatherer proto-human (or w/e you want to call it) was absolutely not able to do this. The point is that orca brains are advanced enough to be able to also take this next step (as they are demonstrably able to utilize their own form of language to communicate) if it was advantageous for them to do so from an evolutionary perspective.

Considering that they live in the oceans, where the ability to write down your thoughts and feelings means absolutely dick all, and where they are THE apex predator, there is no evolutionary incentive for them to do so.

 

2 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

Here are some other things humans are capable of achieving:

 

Leave the planet, travel to deepest part of the sea, split the atom, harness various forms of energy and convert to electricity, write novels, design and build computers, shitpost on the internet, distill alcohol, make art, understand art, think about abstract concepts, write songs, play music on instruments.

Orcas do some impressive things in the animal kingdom.  Like bees and ants, they work in groups and have specialized tasks.  They also know how to knock seals off ice, and have now figured out how to bite sail boat rudders. 

All of these things are a result of our bodies evolving the ability to use tools alongside evolving increasingly large brains. Because orca ancestors took to the oceans and became apex predators, there was/is no evolutionary incentive for them to evolve this ability, thus they are limited by their morphology with regard to what they are able to accomplish. It really is as simple as that.

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15 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

I'll admit I chuckled a little

If you do have any recommendations or links to orca documentaries, please share.  I really am interested in the topic.  I have watched some on crows, african grays, chimps, and dolphins.  They definitely are clever and have their own worlds going on.  I've read up a little on orcas, but not as much.  

3 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

On a serious note, you do realize these things go hand in hand, right? We evolved this ability because we evolved the ability to use tools and also utilize language, thus developing a written language and further evolving our ability to use and parse language. An early hunter-gatherer proto-human (or w/e you want to call it) was absolutely not able to do this. The point is that orca brains are advanced enough to be able to also take this next step (as they are demonstrably able to utilize their own form of language to communicate) if it was advantageous for them to do so from an evolutionary perspective.

Considering that they live in the oceans, where the ability to write down your thoughts and feelings means absolutely dick all, and where they are THE apex predator, there is no evolutionary incentive for them to do so.

 

All of these things are a result of our bodies evolving the ability to use tools alongside evolving increasingly large brains. Because orca ancestors took to the oceans and became apex predators, there was/is no evolutionary incentive for them to evolve this ability, thus they are limited by their morphology with regard to what they are able to accomplish. It really is as simple as that.

I think the reasons you state seem like plausible driving factors, but really we don't know all the reasons and necessary conditions for the development of human language.  Why do other land animals that use tools to some degree not have the ability?  Also, do you think being land based is a necessary condition?  In other words, do you think it is not possible that there are sapient aquatic animals who have acquired language somewhere out there in the entire universe?

More to the point of the argument, these are reasons why orcas do not have our equivalent intelligence.  The original statement was that they are "just as intelligent, self aware, and emotionally active as humans," which is clearly not the case.  Though I do agree with you about the immorality of our treatment of captive orcas.   

 

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Brian Fantana

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21 minutes ago, axiom of foundation said:

I think the reasons you state seem like plausible driving factors, but really we don't know all the reasons and necessary conditions for the development of human language.  Why do other land animals that use tools to some degree not have the ability?  Also, do you think being land based is a necessary condition?  In other words, do you think it is not possible that there are sapient aquatic animals who have acquired language somewhere out there in the entire universe?

More to the point of the argument, these are reasons why orcas do not have our equivalent intelligence.  The original statement was that they are "just as intelligent, self aware, and emotionally active as humans," which is clearly not the case.  Though I do agree with you about the immorality of our treatment of captive orcas.  

Language as we know it seems to just be a result of our need to facilitate learning. As our offspring's brains grew and they became more and more helpless in infancy, the need to teach them everything they know became the basis for the overall structure of civilization. The same is actually true for orcas. They have a high brain/weight ratio and most of what they do is learned behavior actively taught by the mother, not instinctive. Since they have no physical capacity for tool use, they're limited in their communication ability somewhat but they develop their own dialects from pod to pod, very similarly to primitive human tribes. Think of the myriad of different spoken tribal languages that exist just in North America alone that were not developed into written languages for many thousands of years.

I'm not sure if being land based is an absolute necessity, but surviving in the ocean (which is a much, much harsher environment than land, ESPECIALLY for mammals) requires a very different morphology than surviving on land, and I suspect the ability to use tools is very low on the list of things that evolution would naturally select. That doesn't mean under the right conditions it couldn't happen, it just hasn't happened on Earth specifically. Chimps certainly can use tools, but aren't as smart as humans (or orcas, for that matter)

As to your last point, I think it depends on how you define intelligence. I tend to look at it through the lens of capacity. Going point for point and asking "well can you do this?" over and over is not really the argument you should be making. Just because you can't paint the Mona Lisa doesn't mean you're not intelligent. I am a pretty smart person, and I can't paint or draw for shit.

Perhaps I worded the original statement poorly, but it is absolutely true that orcas have the CAPACITY to be hyper-intelligent as humans are, and are only limited by the evolutionary restrictions of needing to survive in one of the harshest ecosystems on the planet. The self awareness part was proven decades ago, there's no argument to be had there. They are just as self aware as people are, period. Every bit of evidence we have from the structure and makeup of their brains to working with them closely for decades and observing their behavior suggests that they are every bit as emotionally active as we are as well.

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7 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Language as we know it seems to just be a result of our need to facilitate learning. As our offspring's brains grew and they became more and more helpless in infancy, the need to teach them everything they know became the basis for the overall structure of civilization. The same is actually true for orcas. They have a high brain/weight ratio and most of what they do is learned behavior actively taught by the mother, not instinctive. Since they have no physical capacity for tool use, they're limited in their communication ability somewhat but they develop their own dialects from pod to pod, very similarly to primitive human tribes. Think of the myriad of different spoken tribal languages that exist just in North America alone that were not developed into written languages for many thousands of years.

I'm not sure if being land based is an absolute necessity, but surviving in the ocean (which is a much, much harsher environment than land, ESPECIALLY for mammals) requires a very different morphology than surviving on land, and I suspect the ability to use tools is very low on the list of things that evolution would naturally select. That doesn't mean under the right conditions it couldn't happen, it just hasn't happened on Earth specifically. Chimps certainly can use tools, but aren't as smart as humans (or orcas, for that matter)

As to your last point, I think it depends on how you define intelligence. I tend to look at it through the lens of capacity. Going point for point and asking "well can you do this?" over and over is not really the argument you should be making. Just because you can't paint the Mona Lisa doesn't mean you're not intelligent. I am a pretty smart person, and I can't paint or draw for shit.

Perhaps I worded the original statement poorly, but it is absolutely true that orcas have the CAPACITY to be hyper-intelligent as humans are, and are only limited by the evolutionary restrictions of needing to survive in one of the harshest ecosystems on the planet. The self awareness part was proven decades ago, there's no argument to be had there. They are just as self aware as people are, period. Every bit of evidence we have from the structure and makeup of their brains to working with them closely for decades and observing their behavior suggests that they are every bit as emotionally active as we are as well.

I'll stick to the intelligence claim, as self awareness is not that uncommon in the animal kingdom, and I'm not sure what constitutes emotional activeness other than expressing pleasure or distress under certain conditions, which many animals also exhibit.  When you say that orcas have the capacity to be hyper intelligent as humans are, do you mean given another few million years under the right conditions they could match our capacity, or do you mean currently, i.e., hypothetically we could take an orca and train them to match human mental activities (training one from infancy, if we didn't care about the morality aspect)? 

On the insufficiency of the "going point for point and asking 'well can you do this?'", the point is that as a species we can perform numerous mental functions that orcas cannot, while we can easily understand any problem an orca could solve.  That is how we recognize cleverness in animals.  We can view an orca and understand what they are doing and trying to accomplish when hunting.  When we see orcas or any other animal do some impressive mental task, we recognize that it is impressive for an animal.  No one is writing their PhD thesis on how to get termites out of the ground with a stick.  If we go by any remotely useful measure of intelligence, we are clearly superior.   

 

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11 minutes ago, NoRagrets said:

This thread could’ve been cool…

Just think, we could have posted page after page about orcas biting boat rudders.  It’s an endless topic to explore.  Of course you still can post whatever you want about it, but I guess it’s not really the same with side orca discussion you have to skip through.  Would be much better if we more narrowly focused solely on specific orca behavior. 

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deadshank

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5 minutes ago, gofuckyourself said:

ORCAn you look up a few posts before posting?

 

5 minutes ago, shadow_operative2.0 said:

@deadshank, getting a little ridiculous with not reading threads. 

 

If you think something is funny, it's probably already been posted. 

Oops.  I did look up thread.  Just not far enough.

 

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hookem2010

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Orcas are brilliant, cold-blooded killers. As mentioned upthread, they will often eat only the choicest parts of their kills and let the rest sink to the bottom of the ocean. They take out gray whales just for the tongue, and I just read that there have been several well-documented reports of them taking out adult blue whales, just the largest creature to ever exist on this planet. We're fortunate they don't try to fuck our shit up more.

Seeing a pod on a ferry to Vancouver Island was incredible. I think that particular population has really been struggling recently, unfortunately.

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crash_davis

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Sunk another boat. They hates them some rudders.

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211269495/orca-boat-yacht-attack-spain-morocco

For 45 minutes, the crew of the Grazie Mamma felt like they were under attack from below. A pod of orcas had zeroed in on the yacht's rudder as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and rammed it repeatedly, "causing major damage and leakage," according to the company that operated the boat.

Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.

Since 2020, there have been about 500 encounters between orcas and boats, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR earlier this year. At least three boats have sunk, though there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.

Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.

One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," said Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research in Spain, in an interview with NPR last year. When they encounter a sailboat without its engine on, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder," de Stephanis said.

raw&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=aba2b0a35dbb0243bab75

 

 

 

Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic, previous encounters with fishing boats.

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute previously told NPR. Shields said she does not think "we can completely rule it out," even if she was not entirely convinced herself.

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