- Killer whales have attacked and even sunk ships near Spain and Portugal.
- Generally speaking, killer whales in the wild do not pose a threat to humans.
- However, boat encounters are still dangerous, and swimming with giant wildlife can be dangerous.
Despite their menacing-sounding name, killer whales aren’t really something humans should fear, at least not in the wild.
Thanks to the killer whales having a good time subpopulations in danger of extinction There have been three incidents of killer whales targeting and sinking ships off the coasts of Spain and Portugal.
The encounter spawned a tongue-in-cheek meme that portrays killer whales as revolutionaries fighting human-caused environmental destruction.
But killer whale experts say it’s likely the killer whales aren’t organizing a revolution, they’re just kidding.
Generally speaking, killer whales are less of a threat to humans.
No casualties were reported in the boat encounters near the Iberian Peninsula. In fact, there are no records of killer whales. deliberately inflict harm wild humans.
Hanne StrangerDanish biologist and whale researcher says people off Norway Swim close to killer whales for decades.
“The killer whales don’t seem to be interested in humans at all. They’re interested in food. For them in the area it’s herring,” Stranger, co-founder of the Andenes Whale Center in Norway, told Insider. rice field. “I think they just think of humans as weird beings.
That’s exactly why killer whales don’t attack. Killer whales do not consider humans to be food.
“Looking around the world, different populations have specialized in eating different types of prey,” said Andrew Traits, director of the University of British Columbia’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, in part killer whale populations eat mainly fish, he added. On the other hand, some people eat marine mammals.
“They stick to what they know and humans have never been a part of their diet,” he told an insider, noting that Iberian killer whales eat mostly bluefin tuna. . Trites added that it would be unlikely that killer whales would mistake humans for seals, given the whales’ intelligence.
Iberians who target boats don’t seem to be interested in humans either, Stranger said. Encounters usually occur when a killer whale approaches the boat from behind and strikes the rudder, sometimes until the rudder breaks and the boat is immobilized.
One crew member on a ship sunk by a whale told Stranger that as soon as the ship began to sink, the killer whales lost all interest in the ship and left. They don’t seem to be interested in what’s on board, just the ship itself.
Stranger and Trites are among the experts who believe the most likely explanation for this behavior is killer whales playing. Stranger likens this to how humans play with popping bubble wrap. In other words, killer whales may only see boats as big toys.
Human deaths by killer whales have something in common
There have been four documented cases of killer whales killing humans, and hundreds of attacks on humans by killer whales, but only in captivity.
3 of them died The same wild killer whales are involved, The name Tilikum was the focus of the 2013 documentary Blackfish. Tilikum was implicated in the death of a man suspected of trespassing at a Canadian park trainer, a SeaWorld Orlando trainer and a Florida park.
But Stranger said captive killer whales are in such an artificial environment that it’s impossible to draw conclusions about them in the wild based on their behavior.
There are no records of killer whales attacking humans in the wild, but that doesn’t mean they’re safe to swim around, Stranger and Trites said. As with any large wild animal, there are inherent dangers associated with humans approaching a herd of elephants.
And even if killer whales aren’t trying to attack people, ship encounters are still dangerous, as are ships that sink at sea with or without killer whales.
Researchers have also expressed concern about the perception that killer whales attack people.
Stranger noted that killer whale populations near the Iberian Peninsula are in serious danger, saying, “We are so frustrated by their behavior that we think they no longer deserve protection. Then it’s dangerous for whales.”