Orcas that approach boats in Portugal and Spain ″are not aggressive″
Orcas that interfere with boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal do not do so out of aggression, but out of curiosity. This is the conclusion of Alfredo López, from the Atlantic Orca Working Group.
As of 2020, there have been about 236 chosen between oucas, also known as killer whales, and boats in the Iberian Peninsula, according to “Spanish News Today”. The JN reported, in October last year, that attacks from ships or tripled this year compared to 2020. Only in the first ten months of 2021 there were 51 records, 21 of them with damages.
According to biologist Alfredo López, from the Atlantic Orca Working Group, if orcas are aggressive, the dolphins that sometimes appear to accompany them would not approach them.
“We draw these cases and we record what happens under the circumstances, which behaviors or forms are aggressive, we observe that not their behaviors, cases of movement show aggression”, López told the magazine “New”. “Although they do not feed on dolphins, if the orcas are aggressive, the dolphins do not approach them out of prevention. Therefore, the image of the orcas swimming with the dolphins demonstrates, once again, that their attitude is not at all aggressive in the actions of interaction that it carries out with the sailboats”.
As orcas are very intelligent animals, so they approach boats out of curiosity. They can also be playful animals. Some have either been observed chasing bars or biting the helm, as usual while playing a game. However, orcas can sometimes grow to 7.9 tons and can weigh more than five. So how can they be served as sailors and ship passengers.
At the end of July this year, five people were rescued after the five followed after an encounter with orcas, off the coast of Sines. Hours before, a sightseeing trip managed to escape an interaction with a pod of orcas in Sesimbra. The captain of the tourist attraction chose to execute the maneuver by Marc Herminio, who last year repelled an attack by ten orcas in Gibraltar, by putting his sailboat in reverse gear, instead of turning it off and turning off the engine, as indicated. authorities.
However, according to López, the orcas are not in attack mode. They do not show aggression in their behavior, but rather touching and manipulating. we define as”, he concluded.