Killer whale near Spain bites rudders off boat
Video taken in Strait of Gibraltar shows orca attacking boat. (Credit: Dan Kriz/Reliance Yacht Management/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX)
A video taken off the coast of Spain has captured a killer whale biting the rudders off a boat.
The footage, taken in the Strait of Gibraltar, begins with the massive sea mammal swimming underneath a boat.
A snapping sound could be heard and then a piece of the boat is seen drifting away.
"We lost both rudders," a man then says as the whale swims away with the debris.
KILLER WHALES DAMAGE BOAT IN ATTACK OFF SPAIN
A splash first is seen as the killer whale travels underneath a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar on June 5. (Dan Kriz/Reliance Yacht Management/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX)
The video, taken around the start of this month, comes after killer whales severely damaged a sailboat off the coast of southern Spain in another incident captured on video in May.
The local maritime rescue service said a group of orcas had broken the boat's rudder and pierced the hull, ramming the Mustique while it traveled to Gibraltar.
The boat's four-person crew then contacted the Spanish authorities for assistance, a spokesman told Reuters.
A rapid-response vessel and a helicopter carrying a bilge pump were deployed to the boat, which was sailing under a British flag.
The Mustique was towed to the port of Barbate for repairs.
Earlier in May, another boat in the area was completely flooded and left to sink after a similar impact.
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A person onboard the boat said the whale destroyed both of its rudders. (Dan Kriz/Reliance Yacht Management/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX)
Off the coast of Morocco, a British couple recalled the moment they were sailing when orcas started bumping their boat in an attack that lasted for an hour.
Janet Morris and Stephen Bidwell of Cambridge, in eastern England, were enjoying a sailing course when they spotted a pod of orcas, they said.
During the attack, the whales repeatedly bumped the boat, but the crew managed to navigate to calmer waters and safety. Morris said that he was worried they were "sitting ducks."
"We were amazingly calm but underneath we were thinking, ‘Oh my God,’" Morris told British news service SWNS.
In May, the Atlantic Orca Working Group reported 18 such interactions in the region.
The group began tracking interactions and sightings in 2020.
It was reported that scientists suspect young whales might be imitating the behavior of a traumatized orca called White Gladis, who suffered a "critical moment of agony," likely a collision with a boat or entanglement with a fishing line, that turned her more aggressive.
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The video ends with the whale appearing to drift away while interacting with the boat debris. (Dan Kriz/Reliance Yacht Management/LOCAL NEWS X/TMX)
"That traumatized orca is the one that started this behavior of physical contact with the boat," Marine biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez told Live Science.
"We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behavior has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives," he added.
Fox News' Julia Musto and Peter Aitken contributed to this report.
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