{"id":163062,"date":"2025-09-17T11:41:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T11:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/163062\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T11:41:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T11:41:05","slug":"scientists-claim-spate-of-orca-attacks-on-european-boats-are-the-whales-way-of-playing-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/163062\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists claim spate of orca attacks on European boats are the whales’ way of playing: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently even whales enjoy horsing around.<\/p>\n

The reason orca whales <\/a>have been attacking European ships recently isn\u2019t due to targeted violence, but rather that the enormous mammals consider it a form of recreation, Spanish scientists claim.<\/p>\n

While orca pods have been terrorizing ships <\/a>along Europe\u2019s western coast and inside the Mediterranean \u2014 with a recent incident reported in Portugal over the weekend \u2014 Renaud de Stephanis, president of Spain\u2019s Conservation, Information and Research on Cetaceans (CIRCE) said this behavior is part of the whales\u2019 \u201cplayful\u201d nature.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is happening with the Iberian orcas and boats is not an attack in the sense of aggression, predation, or territorial defense,\u201d he told the Daily Mail.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Orcas have repeatedly attacked sailing ships along the coasts of Spain and Portugal in recent years. Guardia Civil Pontevedra<\/p>\n

One pod took down a ship at the Costa da Caparica on Saturday. oceanic_lounge\/Instagram<\/p>\n

\u201cThis interaction is closer to a game than to an attack. They are not mistaking the boats for prey, nor are they defending territory,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Stephanis, who described the whales as \u201cextremely intelligent\u201d mammals, said rocking ships<\/a> has become a game \u201cdeveloped by a small subpopulation of orcas\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n

The expert surmised that since the orcas are specifically aiming for the ships\u2019 rudders, they enjoy the rocking of the ship and the resistance, treating it as a toy that stimulates them.<\/p>\n

Dr. Clare Andvik, a marine mammal expert at the University of Oslo, said the stimulation is ramped up for the whale if the humans onboard the ship try to steer away, creating greater resistance for the orcas to test their might against.<\/p>\n

Scientist say the killer whales are purposefully attacking ships not out of malice, but because they find it fun and have made a game out of it. WireImage<\/p>\n

The intelligent creatures are allegedly testing their might against the ships, creating fun for the whales but terror for the passengers on board. Carlos Gauna \/ SWNS<\/p>\n

She said the experience amounted to one big game of tug-of-war for the whales.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course from the human perspective this kind of behavior is not at all fun and it doesn\u2019t seem to them like a game as they are getting knocked around,\u201d Andvik told the Mail. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in some cases the rudder can be broken off completely and cause the boat to take on water and eventually sink [which is] fun for the orcas, not for the humans,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Experts say there have been hundreds of reports of whales interacting with ship between 2020 and 2024. MEEGAN M. REID\/KITSAP SUN \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Such was the case on Saturday when a pod attacked a tourist vessel sailing along Portugal\u2019s Fonte de Telha beach and another ship along the Bay Cascais, according to the country\u2019s National Maritime Authority. Nine people were rescued in the incidents.<\/p>\n

The Orca attacks have been growing in recent years, with the cases concentrated along the coasts of Spain and Portugal, as well as the Strait of Gibraltar. <\/p>\n

Orca Ib\u00e9rica GTOA, a research group studying the animals, said it has recorded hundreds of \u201cinteractions\u201d between orcas and sailing ships in the region between 2020 and 2024. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apparently even whales enjoy horsing around. The reason orca whales have been attacking European ships recently isn\u2019t due…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[18212,1076,4042,79,3662,34688,201,965],"class_list":["post-163062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animal-attacks","tag-europe","tag-portugal","tag-science","tag-spain","tag-whales","tag-wildlife","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}