A viral video shows an orca swimming alongside a yacht traveling at a high speed off the coast of Spain. The orca bumps into the boat several times. The person taking the video, Ilona Skorobogatova, believed the killer whale was being aggressive. At one point, she said: “She is trying to hit us.”
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Skorobogatova has reason to think the orca was trying to damage or even sink the vessel. The Strait of Gibraltar and surrounding areas has been the site of several orca attacks on boats in recent history.
“Skorobogatova said that the orca continued to attack the yacht even after they sped up,” reports ABC 7 Chicago. “Later footage shows members of Sea Shepherd, an international nonprofit marine conservation organization, arriving on the scene.”
[RELATED: Orcas’ Boat-Ramming Behavior Explained by Experts]
In a 2023 interview with Outdoors.com, Dr. Bec Wellard, a research scientist with the Centre for Marine Science and Technology at Western Australia’s Curtin University and the founder and head of research for Project ORCA, said she believes this behavior is experimental and not malicious. It’s possible orcas in this part of the world have learned the behavior from others. ABC 7 Chicago even suggests it’s some sort of “fad” among these intelligent cetaceans.
Watch as an orca bumps a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar here:
Do you think this orca is aggressing on the vessel?
Header stock image by Sara Jenkins/500px via Getty Images
