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A ship captain whose boat has been attacked by orcas twice says they are becoming more coordinated.
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The orcas knew “exactly” what they were doing this time, Dan Kriz told Newsweek.
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“This time, they were quiet, and it didn’t take them that long to destroy both rudders,” Kriz said.
A ship captain who’s had his boats attacked by orcas twice says he thinks they’re learning to be more organized and faster in their attacks.
Speaking to Newsweek, Dan Kriz — a sailor with more than 20 years of experience sailing — said he was first attacked by orcas back in 2020.
And when he was attacked again three years later, on April 15, he noticed marked differences in the ways the orcas behaved.
“First time, we could hear them communicating under the boat. This time, they were quiet, and it didn’t take them that long to destroy both rudders,” Kriz, a crew member with Reliance Yacht Management, told Newsweek.
Kriz also noticed that the latest attack was more organized and swifter as compared to the one three years ago.
“Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing. They didn’t touch anything else,” Kriz told Newsweek. He added that there was one big female orca, in particular, who chased the boat and “wanted to finish the job.”
Kriz told Newsweek that the first orca attack he experienced back in 2020 happened when he was sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar. In 2023, this same area off Gibraltar saw a spike in vessel attacks by orcas.
“I was sailing with my delivery crew through the Strait of Gibraltar delivering a yacht when I was surrounded with a pack of eight orcas, pushing the boat around for about an hour,” Kriz told Newsweek.
Kriz believes that the “same pack of orcas” was responsible for the recent attack he experienced in April.
Though most orca interactions with boats have been harmless, there has been an increase in the number of orca boat attacks off Spain and Morocco.
It is unclear what is driving the orcas to attack the shipping vessels so violently. The orcas’ increasingly aggressive behavior has seen them ramming and even sinking boats.
Some marine life experts believe that a traumatized orca called White Gladis may have kickstarted the trend of orca boat attacks.
Nonetheless, experts have cautioned sailors against retaliating against the orcas and to instead remain calm.
“It’s best to just not try to interfere with anything they’re doing like socializing or hunting for their prey,” marine biologist Thomas Doniol-Valcroze, who heads Canada’s cetacean research program, told CTV News.
“Maintain your course and your speed, basically not doing any sudden changes,” Doniol-Valcroze said.
Read the original article on Insider
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