By Christopher Isaac | Published
In the last few years, there have been more and more news stories about killer whales attacking and sinking ships at sea. No one can explain this unusual behavior, as it was never done by killer whales before, but it’s now happening more frequently. And it’s not just killer whales now: a shocking video recently shared on X shows whales attacking ships.
In the case of the killer whales, there is no doubt at this point that the behaviour is deliberate.
The short video shows passengers on another boat enthusiastically enjoying watching the whale. But things quickly become serious as the whale dives and lands on another boat, capsizing it and the video abruptly ends. From the limited footage, it’s difficult to tell if the whale was deliberately following the boat or simply diving in unaware that the boat was nearby.
In the case of killer whales, there is no doubt at this point that the behavior is intentional. Since 2020, there have been over 500 reports of killer whales attacking boats. Scientists believe that this behavior is passed down among pods of killer whales, and that pods continue to learn this behavior by witnessing the behavior of other pods. If the whale seen sinking the boat in the video also learned this behavior, it would be intriguing if it also learned it from the killer whales.
The only relief is that if the whale seen sinking the boat in the video did so on purpose, it would likely be difficult for other whales to learn this tactic.
Although it’s called a “killer whale,” a killer whale is a type of dolphin. Most previous reports of ship sinkings have centered around killer whales being the culprits. If this was indeed the deliberate action of the whale seen attacking the ship in the video, this is an alarming new development. If real whales were behaving like this now, they would be much larger than killer whales and could cause much more damage.
The only saving grace is that if the whale sinking the boat in the video did so on purpose, it would likely be difficult for other whales to learn this tactic. Unlike killer whales, real whales are not pod animals; they don’t usually swim together in coordinated pods. So a single whale that attacks a boat wouldn’t have a pod of whales to teach it the technique.
Scientists believe the killer whale attack may have begun as retaliation for an incident in which the killer whale was possibly injured by a boat.
The way the whale attacked the boat in the video also doesn’t seem to match how killer whales typically attack vessels. Killer whales typically try to injure boats by ramming them and biting off the rudder, etc. They don’t typically dive into a boat and slam it into them. The video is too short to know if the whale exhibited other behaviors like this, but based on what’s seen on video, it doesn’t seem to match a typical killer whale attack pattern.
Scientists believe the attack may have begun as retaliation for an incident in which the killer whale was injured by a boat. As for the whale that sank the boat, nothing in the video shows the boat attempting to attack the whale, but the footage is too short to know for sure what the circumstances were.
