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Killer whales attack another sailboat off Spain, prompting complex rescue that injures crewmember

By Emily Mae Czachor

Updated on: August 26, 2024 / 4:08 PM EDT / CBS News

Orcas slammed into a sailboat off the coast of northwestern Spain on Sunday, damaging its rudder and prompting a complicated rescue operation that left one crew member seriously injured, officials said, marking the latest incident of the predators attacking a vessel in the region. 

It wasn't known exactly how many orcas — also known as killer whales — were involved in the attack near O Roncudo along the rocky cliffs of the Spanish province of Galicia. Spain's maritime rescue service said two people on board the boat, called the Amidala, sent out a mayday at around 4 p.m. GMT to the dispatch center in Cape Finisterre, an area also marked by rocky shores and, at the time, rough seas.

The man and woman who crewed the Amidala haven't been identified by name, but the rescue service described them as Belgian nationals. Their boat sailed under the Finnish flag.

Another vessel with the Spanish maritime rescue service sailed for hours to the Amidala through adverse weather, which included waves nearly 10 feet high and winds of up to 40 miles per hour, the rescue service said. While arranging the towing operation that would allow the rescue vessel to slowly pull the sailboat to a port at Camariñas, the woman on board the Amidala seriously injured her hand and was airlifted back to land. The towing mission eventually ended with the sailboat docked just before 9:30 p.m.

Manuel Capeáns, who leads the rescue coordination center in Cape Finisterre, in a statement commended the Amidala's crew and everyone involved in the recovery for successfully completing the operation in such harsh conditions. 

The incident on Sunday is just the latest in a string of accounts of orcas severely damaging sailboats in Spanish waters and across the surrounding region. In May, a sailing yacht sunk after killer whales attacked it in the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea between southern Spain and Morocco. The unknown number of orcas in that ordeal slammed into the vessel carrying two people and caused a water leak, according to Spain's maritime rescue center. Those crew members were rescued by a passing oil tanker.

Orca attacks on sailboats have apparently become more common in recent years. Reports of killer whale interactions with humans more than tripled over the last two years, according to a research group called GTOA, which documents such incidents in and around the Atlantic Iberian Peninsula. 

The group said it has recorded hundreds of those interactions since 2020, although researchers noted that orcas' behavior in the Strait of Gibraltar and Bay of Biscay — another hotspot for killer whale interactions — dropped significantly between January and May of this year compared with the last three years' average figures over those same months.

Sailors have resorted to everything from throwing sand in the water to setting off fireworks to blasting thrash metal music in efforts to ward off the encroaching predators.

• Boat Accident

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast. Scientists don't know why

Scott Neuman

An orca pod seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021. Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservación Information and Research hide caption

An orca pod seen in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2021.

Ester Kristine Storkson was asleep on her father's small yacht earlier this month, sailing off the coast of France, when she was violently awakened.

Scrambling on deck, she spotted several orcas, or killer whales, surrounding them. The steering wheel swung wildly. At one point, the 37-foot sailboat was pushed through 180 degrees, heading it in the opposite direction.

They were "ramming the boat," Storkson says. "They [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack."

"I told my dad, 'I'm not thinking clearly, so you need to think for me,'" the 27-year-old Norwegian medical student says. "Thankfully, he is a very calm and centered person, and made me feel safe by gently talking about the situation."

After about 15 minutes, the orcas broke off, leaving father and daughter to assess the damage. They stuck a GoPro camera in the water, she says, and could see that "approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent."

A screen grab from a video of the encounter between a pod of orcas and the Storkson boat. Ester Kristine Storkson hide caption

A screen grab from a video of the encounter between a pod of orcas and the Storkson boat.

For any vessel, losing steering at sea is a serious matter and can be dangerous in adverse conditions and some sailboats have had to be towed into port after orcas destroyed their rudders. Fortunately, the Storksons had enough of their rudder left to limp into Brest, on the French coast, for repairs. But the incident temporarily derailed their plan to reach Madeira, off northwest Africa, part of an ambitious plan to sail around the world.

There is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild. Still, two boats were reportedly sunk by orcas off the coast of Portugal last month, in the worst such encounter since authorities have tracked them.

The incident involving the Storksons is an outlier, says Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, a cetacean research group based in Spain. It was farther north -- nowhere near the Strait of Gibraltar, nor the coast of Portugal or Spain, where other such reports have originated.

That is a conundrum. Up to now, scientists have assumed that only a few animals are involved in these encounters and that they are all from the same pod, de Stephanis says.

"I really don't understand what happened there," he acknowledges. "It's too far away. I mean, I don't think that [the orcas] would go up there for a couple of days and then come back."

These encounters — most scientists shun the word "attack" — have been getting the attention of sailors and scientists alike in the past two years, as their frequency seems to be increasing. Sailing magazines and websites have written about the phenomenon, noting that orcas seem to be especially attracted to a boat's rudder. A Facebook group , with more than 13,000 members, has sprung up to trade personal reports of boat-orca encounters and speculation on avoidance tactics. And, of course, there are no shortage of dramatic videos posted to YouTube.

Scientists don't know the reason, but they have some ideas

Scientists hypothesize that orcas like the water pressure produced by a boat's propeller. "What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," de Stephanis says. So, when they encounter a sailboat that isn't running its engine, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder."

Even so, that doesn't entirely explain an experience Martin Evans had last June when he was helping to deliver a sailboat from Ramsgate, England, to Greece.

About 25 miles off the coast of Spain, "just shy of entering the Strait of Gibraltar," Evans and his crew mates were under sail, but they were also running the boat's engine with the propeller being used to boost their speed.

As Evans was on watch, the steering wheel began moving so violently that he couldn't hold on, he says.

"I was like, 'Jesus, what's this?'" he recalls. "It was like a bus was moving it. ... I look to the side, and all of a sudden I could just see that familiar white and black of the killer whale."

Evans noticed "chunks of the rudder on the surface."

Jared Towers, the director of Bay Cetology, a research organization in British Columbia, says "there's something about moving parts ... that seem to stimulate them."

"Perhaps that's why they're focused on the rudders," he says.

The population of orcas along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts is small and de Stephanis believes that the damage to boats is being done by just a few juvenile males.

If so, they may simply outgrow the behavior, de Stephanis says. As the young males get older, they will need to help the pod hunt for food and will have less time for playing with sailboats.

"This is a game," he speculates. "When they ... have their own adult life, it will probably stop."

An orca calf, photographed in the Strait of Gibraltar, in 2021. Renaud de Stephanis/CIRCE Conservación Information and Research hide caption

An orca calf, photographed in the Strait of Gibraltar, in 2021.

Towers says such "games" tend to go in and out of fashion in orca society. For example, right now in a population he studies in the Pacific, "we have juvenile males who ... often interact with prawn and crab traps," he says. "That's just been a fad for a few years."

Back in the 1990s, for some orcas in the Pacific, something else was in vogue. "They'd kill fish and just swim around with this fish on their head," Towers says. "We just don't see that anymore."

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Scientists Have a New Theory About Why Orcas Are Attacking Boats

A pod of orcas damaged a boat and left its two-person crew stranded. It was the latest in a string of attacks that research suggests could be used for hunting practice.

By Lynsey Chutel

Reporting from London

The orcas have struck again — this time ramming a sailboat off Spain’s northwest coast, rescue workers said on Tuesday.

A pod of orcas damaged the rudder of a sailboat, leaving its two-person crew stranded in the waters off Cape Finisterre Sunday, according to an emailed statement from the rescue workers. It is the latest in a string of attacks by pods of orcas swimming around the Iberian Peninsula.

While the sailboat, the Amidala, did not sink, pods of orcas have sunk several vessels in recent years. Researchers still do not know whether the attacks are playful or malicious, but a new theory based on studying the troublesome pods of orcas suggests that they could be using the boats as practice targets for new hunting techniques. Other competing theories still exist.

Regardless of the orcas’ intentions, the behavior is enough to worry sailors journeying in the highly trafficked waters around North Africa, Spain and Portugal.

The Amidala, manned by a crew of two Belgians, encountered an unknown number of orcas on Sunday afternoon. They sent a mayday distress call to the Finisterre Maritime Rescue Center, which towed the vessel back to shore, the center said.

The sailboat’s damaged rudder, and poor weather conditions in the area, made the rescue more arduous, with waves reaching up to nearly 10 feet and winds hitting speeds of 40 miles per hour. A female crew member on the Amidala suffered injuries to her hand as the sailboat was being towed, and she was transferred to a rescue vessel, the rescue center said. After more than four hours, the Amidala made it back to shore.

In recent years, sailors have shared tips about how to stop orca rammings, or at the very least deter them. Deterrents include painting the hull a different color. Another tactic is to blast heavy metal music, or to scatter sand into the ocean. There’s also an app that tracks orca activity in the ocean, letting boats steer clear of pods.

Researchers have no definitive explanations about why orcas, seemingly in this region alone, are increasingly ramming ships. One theory suggests that the ramming stems from past traumatic encounters between orcas and boats. Some scientists think it may be simpler than that — as naturally curious and playful mammals, orcas may just be having some fun.

The other, new, theory comes from the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Spain, which has been tracking the orca ship rammings since 2020. It has found that orca pods off the coast of Spain, who migrate in the waters between North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, have developed a taste of Atlantic bluefin tuna, according to a paper the institute will publish next month.

That species of tuna can grow up to 10 feet long and move at speeds that orcas can’t always catch, at least not without training, said Bruno Díaz López, the institute’s chief biologist. Sailboats are often the ideal size to train on — they move quickly and silently, and close to the water’s surface, not unlike the orcas’ prey.

Researchers studying the ramming incidents have found that it is mostly young orcas who go after sailboats, but sometimes adults appear to be teaching younger members of the pod how to do so. The orcas have also figured out that the rudder is soft enough to bite, and that fiberglass makes for good ramming, Mr. Díaz López said.

“This is like a training toy,” Mr. Díaz López said. “It’s a shame that we humans are in the middle of this game, but they are learning.”

Lynsey Chutel covers South Africa and the countries that make up southern Africa from Johannesburg. More about Lynsey Chutel

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Orcas sank three boats off the coast of Portugal, but don't call them 'killer' just yet

Three recent incidents of orcas seemingly attacking and sinking boats off the southwestern tip of Europe are drawing intense scrutiny over whether the animals deliberately swarmed the vessels and if they are learning the aggressive behavior from one another.

Encounters between orcas, or killer whales, and boats have been increasing since 2020, though no human injuries or deaths have been reported. In most cases, the whales have not sunk the boats.

The string of incidents since 2020 prompted one scientist in Portugal to say the attacks may indicate that the whales are intending to cause damage to sailing vessels. Others, however, are more skeptical, saying that while the behavior may be coordinated, it’s not necessarily coordinated aggression.

“I think it gets taken as aggression because it’s causing damage, but I don’t think we can say that the motivation is aggressive necessarily,” said Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington state.

At least 15 interactions between orcas and boats off the Iberian coast were reported in 2020, according to a study published last June in the journal Marine Mammal Science .

In November 2020, Portugal’s National Maritime Authority issued a statement alerting sailors about “curious behavior” among juvenile killer whales. The statement said the whales may be attracted to rudders and propellers and may try to approach boats.

The subsequent sinkings have caused more alarm.

The most recent encounter occurred on May 4 off the coast of Spain. Three orcas struck the rudder and side of a sailing yacht, causing it to eventually sink, as was reported earlier this month in a German publication called Yacht .

One theory put forward by Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, suggested that the aggression started from a female orca that was perhaps struck by a boat — a traumatic experience that caused her to start ramming sailing vessels. López Fernandez, who co-authored the June 2022 study published in Marine Mammal Science, told Live Science that other orcas may have then picked up that behavior through social learning, which whales have been known to exhibit.

But Shields said orcas have not historically been known to be aggressive toward humans, even when they were being hunted and placed in captivity.

“They’ve certainly had reason to engage in that kind of behavior,” she said. “There are places where they are shot at by fishermen, they’ve watched family members be taken from their groups into captivity in the ‘60s and ‘70s. And if something was going to motivate direct aggression, I would think something like that would have done it.”

Shields added that there are no clear instances of killer whales exhibiting what could be thought of as revenge behavior against humans.

She said the recent attacks on boats are likely more consistent with what’s known as “fad” behavior, which describes novel but temporary conduct from one whale that can be mimicked by others.

“It’s kind of a new behavior or game that one whale seems to come up with, and it seems to spread throughout the population — sometimes for a matter of weeks or months, or in some cases years — but then in a lot of cases it just goes away,” she said.

In the Pacific Northwest, for instance, Shields and her colleagues have observed fad behavior among Southern Resident killer whales who started carrying dead salmon around on their heads for a time before the behavior suddenly stopped.

Shields said the behavior of orcas off the Iberian coast may also be temporary.

“This feels like the same type of thing, where one whale played with a rudder and said: ‘Hey, this is a fun game. Do you want to try it?’ And it’s the current fad for that population of orcas,” she said.

While Shields did not dismiss the trauma response theory out of hand, she said it would be difficult to confirm without more direct evidence.

“We know their brains are wired to have really complex emotions, and so I think they could be capable of something like anger or revenge,” she said. “But again, it’s just not something that we’ve seen any examples of, and we’ve given them plenty of opportunities throughout the world to want to take revenge on us for various things. And they just choose not to.”

Denise Chow is a science and space reporter for NBC News.

May 24, 2023

Why Has a Group of Orcas Suddenly Started Attacking Boats?

Killer whales in a group near Spain and Portugal may be teaching one another to mess with small boats. They sank their third vessel earlier this month

By Stephanie Pappas

A group of three orcas, also known as killer whales, are seen swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar. Individuals in the critically endangered subpopulation have been attacking boats off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Malcolm Schuyl/Alamy Stock Photo

A trio of orcas attacked a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar earlier this month, damaging it so badly that it sank soon afterward.

The May 4 incident was the third time killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) have sunk a vessel off the coasts of Portugal and Spain in the past three years. The subpopulation of orcas in this region began harassing boats, most often by biting at their rudder, in 2020. Almost 20 percent of these attacks caused enough damage to disable the vessels, says Alfredo López, an orca researcher at the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), which monitors the Iberian killer whale population. “It is a rare behavior that has only been detected in this part of the world,” he says.

Researchers aren’t sure why the orcas are going after the watercraft. There are two hypotheses, according to López. One is that the killer whales have invented a new fad, something that subpopulations of these members of the dolphin family are known to do. Much as in humans, orca fads are often spearheaded by juveniles, López says. Alternatively, the attacks may be a response to a bad past experience involving a boat.

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The first known incident occurred in May 2020 in the Strait of Gibraltar, an area with heavy boat traffic. Since then GTOA has recorded 505 cases of orcas reacting to boats. Sometimes they simply approached the vessels, and only a fraction of cases involved physical contact, López says. In a study published in June 2022 in Marine Mammal Science , he and his colleagues cataloged 49 instances of orca-boat contact in 2020 alone. The vast majority of the attacks were on sailboats or catamarans, with a handful involving fishing boats and motorboats. The average length of the vessels was 12 meters (39 feet). For comparison, a full-grown orca can be 9.2 meters (30 feet) long.

The researchers found that the orcas preferentially attack the boats’ rudder, sometimes scraping the hull with their teeth. Such attacks often snap the rudder, leaving the boat unable to navigate. In three cases, the animals damaged a boat so badly that it sank: In July 2022 they sank a sailboat with five people onboard. In November 2022 they caused a sailboat carrying four to go down. And finally, in this month’s attack, the Swiss sailing yacht Champagne had to be abandoned, and the vessel sank while it was towed to shore. In all cases, the people onboard were rescued safely.

In 2020 researchers observed nine different individual killer whales attacking boats; it’s unclear if others have since joined in. The attacks tended to come from two separate groups: a trio of juveniles occasionally joined by a fourth and a mixed-aged group consisting of an adult female named White Gladis, two of her young offspring and two of her sisters. Because White Gladis was the only adult involved in the initial incidents, the researchers speculate that she may have become entangled in a fishing line at some point, giving her a bad association with boats. Other adult orcas in the region have injuries consistent with boat collisions or entanglement, López says. “All this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are at the origin of this behavior,” he says.

The safe rescue of everyone involved, however, suggests to Deborah Giles that these orcas don’t have malevolent motivations against humans. Giles, science and research director of the Washington State–based nonprofit conservation organization Wild Orca, points out that humans relentlessly harassed killer whales off the coasts of Washington and Oregon in the 1960s and 1970s, capturing young orcas and taking them away for display at marine parks. “These are animals that, every single one of them, had been captured at one point or another—most whales multiple times. And these are whales that saw their babies being taken away from them and put on trucks and driven away, never to be seen again,” Giles says. “And yet these whales never attacked boats, never attacked humans.”

Though it’s possible that the orcas around the Iberian Peninsula could be reacting to a bad experience with a boat, Giles says, it’s pure speculation to attribute that motivation to the animals. The behavior does seem to be learned, she says, but could simply be a fad without much rhyme or reason—to the human mind, anyway. Famously, some members of the Southern Resident orcas that cruise Washington’s Puget Sound each summer and fall spent the summer of 1987 wearing dead salmon on their head. There was no apparent reason for salmon hats to come in vogue in orca circles, but the behavior spread and persisted for a few months before disappearing again. “We’re not going to know what’s happening with this population,” Giles says, referring to the Iberian orcas.

The Iberian orca attacks typically last less than 30 minutes, but they can sometimes go on for up to two hours, according to the 2022 study. In the case of the Champagne, two juvenile killer whales went after the rudder while an adult repeatedly rammed the boat, crew members told the German magazine Yacht . The attack lasted 90 minutes.

The Iberian orca subpopulation is considered critically endangered, with only 39 animals the last time a full census was conducted in 2011. A 2014 study found that this subpopulation follows the migration of their key prey , Atlantic bluefin tuna—a route that puts them in close contact with human fishing, military activities and recreational boating. Maritime authorities recommend that boaters in the area slow down and try to stay away from orcas, López says, but there is no guaranteed way to avoid the animals. He and his colleagues fear the boat attacks will come back and bite the orcas, either because boaters will lash out or because the attacks are dangerous to the animals themselves. “They run a great risk of getting hurt,” López says.

Boat-ramming orcas may be using yachts as target practice toys, scientists suggest

Experts have a new theory about why orcas are targeting sailboats in the Iberian Peninsula — they're using them to practice hunting their favorite food.

Scientists have a new theory to explain why orcas are ramming yachts in the Iberian Peninsula — the boats are practice targets for learning to hunt their favorite food.

When young Iberian orcas ( Orcinus orca ) started hitting and sinking boats in 2020, experts wondered whether it was revenge , accidental, or just a fun thing to do . But the new theory suggests the juvenile orcas might be using the boats' rudders as targets to practice hunting Atlantic bluefin tuna ( Thunnus thynnus ).

Since 2020, the sailing community has been, understandably, highly interested in the predators' whereabouts. "We saw that as a great opportunity for science," study lead author Bruno Díaz López , director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI), told Live Science. The team realized they could use citizen science to gather accurate data about the orca population's distribution. "The sailors aren't going to be lying to each other because it's quite a serious problem," he said. Nearly half (47%) of the study's 597 records of killer whale occurrences related to vessel interactions.

Using this data, the team created computer models of the orcas' movements to fill knowledge gaps around their seasonal movements. Their models showed that the orcas and tuna are driven by the same environmental factors, meaning that knowing where the tuna are located gives you a good idea where the orcas will be. They discovered seasonal shifts in the orcas' preferred habitats, which align with the tuna's migration.

Related: A really big shark got gobbled up by another, massive shark in 1st known case of its kind

The findings were published June 18 in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management .

Orcas are highly specialized predators, and different communities prefer different prey, depending on the most abundant food available. Iberian orcas "really depend on tuna," Díaz López said.

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Atlantic bluefin tuna are no longer endangered thanks to conservation measures to protect them from overfishing. Their recovery makes it easier for the Iberian orcas to find food, giving them more leisure time. "If you eat well, you have more time to play," Díaz López said.

And this play might give them the opportunity to practice useful skills. Orcas have to work together to catch tuna, as the fish can weigh hundreds of pounds, swim in large schools and are among the fastest fish in the sea.

To isolate an individual tuna and get it away from the protection of the group, the orcas ram, Díaz López said. "Maybe one orca hits, and then the other one hits again," he said. Once the orcas have separated an individual tuna, they tire it out and drive it towards shallower waters where it's easier to catch.

From reports of the killer whales' behavior towards sailboats, Díaz López believes the orcas are performing similar actions as they would during a hunt: repeatedly ramming the fast-moving rudder before trying to bite it. "To play is to learn," he said. "If you have a dog and you use a toy, the dog is learning a hunting technique."

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Erich Hoyt , a researcher at marine charity Whale and Dolphin Conservation, who was not involved in the study, agrees that the orcas are likely playing. The interactions are most likely due to "normal predator curiosity leading to play behavior," he told Live Science via email. However, he's not convinced the boats are just target practice.

"I don't believe the orcas are playing with the rudders just to refine their hunting skills for tuna," he said. "I think their play is more like kids' play, without a set goal but which, in effect, helps building cognitive and physical skills."

To prevent further negative encounters, Hoyt recommends sailors monitor the orcas' movements and stay away. "The more the activity happens, the more it gets reinforced to continue," he said.

He believes this behavior is a phase that will eventually fizzle out. "In our limited experience we have seen that fads disappear over time," he said.

Melissa Hobson is a freelance writer who specializes in marine science, conservation and sustainability, and particularly loves writing about the bizarre behaviors of marine creatures. Melissa has worked for several marine conservation organizations where she soaked up their knowledge and passion for protecting the ocean. A certified Rescue Diver, she gets her scuba fix wherever possible but is too much of a wimp to dive in the UK these days so tends to stick to tropical waters. Her writing has also appeared in National Geographic, the Guardian, the Sunday Times, New Scientist, VICE and more.

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Mystery over boat-ramming killer whales blamed for sinking yachts solved as scientists uncover reason for orca attacks

• Mackenzie Tatananni , Science and Tech Reporter
• Published : 16:54, 5 Sep 2024
• Updated : 19:01, 5 Sep 2024
• Published : Invalid Date,

ORCAS know exactly what they're doing when they ram into boats - and now scientists have proposed an explanation.

The peculiar behavior has captured public interest and sparked a spate of internet memes .

A lighthearted theory emerged among netizens that the creatures were taking "revenge" against a human presence in their waters.

This came after a series of highly publicized collisions, including an instance in late July where a pod of orcas tipped over a 39-foot yacht.

At the time, the owner claimed the act was intentional, proclaiming the killer whales "knew exactly what they were doing."

And a new theory suggests that may be the case.

A study published June 18 in Ocean and Coastal Management presents compelling evidence that orcas use boats for target practice as they learn to hunt.

Researchers at the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Spain noted an increase in reports of "interactive behavior" with vessels around the Iberian Peninsula since 2020.

They believe juvenile orcas might be honing in on the boats' rudders as they practice hunting Atlantic bluefin tuna.

The researchers pored over population distribution data and found that 47% of 597 records of killer whale occurrences involved a vessel.

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Using this information, they created computer models of the orcas' movements to paint a picture of their seasonal movements.

The models demonstrated that the orcas and their prey - tuna, not boats - were driven by the same environmental factors.

Notably, seasonal shifts in the orcas' preferred habitats aligned with the tuna's migration.

Orcas are apex predators, meaning they sit at the top of the food chain with no natural predators of their own.

This responsibility comes with a generous appetite. Killer whales have a varied diet ranging from larger mammals like seals to fish, squid, and sea birds.

Different orca communities prefer different food sources, with the Iberian population favoring tuna.

"The abundance of Atlantic bluefin tuna...in the area, particularly during spring and summer, has led to a significant dietary focus on this fish species, at least during the mentioned seasons, for this killer whale population," the scientists wrote.

Scientists suspect the plentiful supply - fueled, in part, by conservation efforts - makes hunting easier and leaves the orcas with leisure time.

Killer whales are highly social animals that work in close-knit groups to catch prey. To isolate an individual tuna from a school, they ram. Once they've succeeded, they exhaust the fish and chase it towards shallower waters.

Based on anecdotal evidence, the scientists believe the orcas are performing similar actions by repeatedly ramming the rudder before trying to take a bite.

In addition to clearing up a common misconception, the conclusions may impact killer whale conservation.

As a species, orcas are woefully misunderstood, and boat-ramming does not help their reputation.

There have been no reports of fatal attacks on humans in their natural habitat, but the creatures are often perceived as bloodthirsty beasts.

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In addition to improving public perception, a better understanding of orca behavior could help boaters avoid collisions and reduce property damage.

"This approach aims to provide valuable insights into the habitat preferences of this species with the potential to enhance conservation efforts by informing strategies to mitigate human-killer whale interactions," the scientists wrote.

Orcas - How dangerous are they?

Orcas - also known as killer whales - are the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family.

The creatures are dubbed "killer whales" as they hunt and eat other smaller species of dolphin.

Some also feed exclusively on fish, while others hunt marine mammals like seals and other dolphins.

They're known as apex predators meaning they're at the top of the food-chain and no other animals feed on them.

There are no recorded incidents of orcas attacking humans before the bizarre boat-bashings, but they have been known to feast on other land-dwelling mammals like moose who swim between islands.

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