There were two more incidents of orcas going after boats in the Strait of Gibraltar this week, and it’s still not clear what is causing the behavior
that it was likely the animals involved in the incidents are “getting some sort of reward or thrill from it,” since “play is part of being a predator.”that the past-trauma theory is plausible but unlikely to be something anyone will ever be able to prove:
Notions of collective self-defence in cetaceans are far from outlandish. We have accounts of sperm whales rising to each other’s defence when orcas attack, for example. Solidarity is a more subjective issue, and we don’t have access to the internal mental states of these animals to really understand whether this is going on … It is not impossible that these orcas perceive their own common aggressor in us — but it is also entirely possible they have no such concept.
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. 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.
In addition, scientists are worried the population of Iberian orcas, which is already critically endangered, will face retaliation from humans over the incidents, as Andenes Whale Center co-founderThey are among the most polluted marine mammals in the world, so their breeding success is not good. It’s a very stressful environment for them.
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