Orcas appear to have sunk a sailboat- what now?

[JPA Cate]

According to a marine biologist friend of ours, who I asked and who was in e-mail contact with another English speaking one in Portugal, the guys who are interfering with the rudders are adolescents, and their best hypothesis is that it is "play." However, much mammal "play" is about training for obtaining food.

What seems to discourage it is motoring slowly astern. No reason for it working, except that it seems to, and it was the local fishermen who discovered that as a tactic, it works.

So, my advice is to stay out of the area. If that is not possible, due to where your boat is, the Portuguese gov't has identified a route out to sea for yachties and others to follow to get out of the whales' feeding and breeding grounds. So, follow their instructions, and be prepared to down sails and motor backwards for a bit. It is what has been shown to be effective.

Do expect prosecution if what you to to "defend" yourself from "attack" is "persecuting" the whale and you are reported for it. The marine biologists have already decided it was not an attack. Killer whales are capable of killing larger whales. My guess is that you'd soon recognize a real attack, and would soon be in the water. Modern plastic boats will not stand up to whale ramming. So don't attack them. They would fight back. Be prudent. And live to sail another day.

By the way, in Eden in New South Wales, there used to be a whaling outpost. The killer whales were rewarded by being given the tongues of the humpbacks they herded into the bay. The killer whales were also reported as taking juvenile aboriginal people who wandered onto the beach to watch. So all this chat from the other thread about Orcas never eating people may not be accurate; well meaning, perhaps, but not necessarily accurate.

Ann

[AKA-None]

So is there an area defined as no go? If so then why go there?

Consider would you try going near a port contested in the Ukraine? Or would you insist that you should be allowed there?

Risk assessment people risk assessment

[AJAL]

The “no go” areas in Portugal and Spain are ones easily and should be circumvented. Having said that, any boat heading out/back to Atlantic/Med has to go through the strait of Gibraltar. Plenty of interactions there https://www.orcaiberica.org/last-interactions.

Whilst the marine experts try and find explanations and perhaps more guidance, yachties have always been solution oriented. Trying to get that here.

The “do nothing”, fold sails etc approach has proven unhelpful. Loads of stats in the link above. I have read about the reverse strategy (which by the way, is expressly written as illegal under Spanish law), but also about pouring a litter of diesel at the stern (I guess also illegal).

Has anyone heard of a diesel strategy success?

[boatman61]

I think that would come under urinating when being charged by sharks drives them away..

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by Franziska

What I would absolutely not do is to try to harm them physically.
I am strongly opposed to guns, knifes or anything along those lines.

Agreed completely. These animals are very rare and more intelligent than humans. They have the right to destroy our boats in their sea or do whatever they like to inferior life forms just as I have the right to destroy wasp nests or squash cockroaches. If one of them eats you: it is not a crime. It is simply nature as you are lower on the food chain.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

It doesn't work. This approach was taken during one encounter. It lasted over 2 hours and resulted in complete destruction of both rudder stocks (a catamaran) and associated linkages disabled the vessel and it needed to be towed to port.

Surprising that they could not steer with the sails while offshore (unless there was no wind) or with the engines when getting to port.
Or was an engine drivetrain wrecked as well?
Inside the port I do get why they used towing assistance.

Maybe they were enough under shock to not try the above.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Franziska

Surprising that they could not steer with the sails while offshore (unless there was no wind) or with the engines when getting to port.
Or was an engine drivetrain wrecked as well?
Inside the port I do get why they used towing assistance.

Maybe they were enough under shock to not try the above.

Having taken a badly damaged cat into a marina with no steerage it is truly a surprise..
I used both engines manipulating revs to maintain course and once in the marina did what I normally do with a cat to go alongside, play the controls forward and reverse to turn and manoeuvre.

[Rumrace]

We need a British Columbia boater to explain these animals. Or a boater from Quebec City.
The West Coast pod is astounding. The pod doesn’t miss a think. There have been close encounters with paddle boards and kayaks
These boaters know these whales well.
They are just fine but you don’t mess with them. I’ve seen them off the coast of Nanaimo at about 80’ feet. 3 went by slow looking me over. I would not be surprised if they didn’t attack the salmon Farms full of Atlantic salmon eating food in the food column. This has reduced stocks of the five species of pacific salmon. Again they are smarter than us and attacking the salmon farms would stabilize their Environment.
I’ve met lots of whales sharks and rays.
The whale shark is just a big dummy actually friendly. Dolphins all characters and can be more dangerous than sharks.
Octopus and Killer Whales got all the brains. They are both astounding. Belugas are the most violent hunters.
If killer whales in a POD are attacking boats they have good reason.

[Borja]

I was shown this topic and I believe there are some small misunderstandings about this issue - I've known the area, and this population of orcas, since I was a little child and have been sailing the Algarve and Gulf of Cádiz for a couple of decades.

Originally Posted by Franziska

Now that's sounds like a more reasonable approach,than the 'killed call some favor.

Could be worth a try. Not sure what science would say to this approach.

Here’s a summary of what we know about acoustic deterrence and orcas (not much at all):

The NOAA published a paper titled “Sound Exposure and Southern Resident Killer Whales”. I’ll cite from there “ it appears that killer whales will avoid an area within about 4 km of an AHD producing a 10 kHz signal at a source level of 194 dB re 1 μPa at1”.

This is based on a 2002 study by Morton and Symonds, "Displacement of Orcinus orca by high amplitude sound in British Columbia, Canada". It's the only high-quality study showing acoustic deterrence creasing persistent aversion in orcas (no habituation) - orcas started vising a salon farm equipped with anti-seal pingers less - but the impact, while substantial, was at the margin (they kept going there in lower numbers).


However, attempts to replicate the study with depredating orcas haven't been less successful. Cf for example Habituation to an acoustic harassment device (AHD) by killer whales depredating demersal longlines by Tixier et al - it works for a while but orcas quickly get used to the sound and start ignoring it.

In this very orca population, when depredation became a serious economic issue as tuna stocks were increasingly scarce, the Spanish marine institute distributed pingers among the handlining fleet - to discourage them from trying to use more harmful methods - and the orcas would play with them. I remember hearing fishermen talking about this at the time but have no idea what type of pingers were used. Pretty sure this is referenced in one of Ruth Esteban's papers on depredation.


Also, the NOAA has published a safety protocol to keep orcas away from oil spills - it includes using oikomi pipes - which seems entirely based on the claim they were successfully used to move orcas trapped in a freshwater lake in Alaska. Of course, this is no evidence of inducing aversion.

To summarize: if someone wants to try a pinger, something close to ~10 kHz / 190 dB is probably the way to go, but there’s little reason to believe it will work.

FWIW, their usage isn’t illegal in Spanish waters eo ipso; what’s illegal is their usage to “disturb” orcas. I highly doubt this is ever going to be enforced, but if someone uses them with orcas surrounding the boat, best to only talk about it after leaving Spain.

I'm going along with the line that smaller boats are attacked because they can "see" results from it which they won't get attacking a ship.
We are colateral from overfishing tuna and the like.

Whatever is the reason for the behavior, it surely isn’t because of overfishing tuna or anything else.


This population is monotrophic - they only eat bluefin tuna and nothing else. Stocks of eastern atlantic bluefin tuna are at the highest levels on recorded history and keep growing every year. Check for example: https://planettuna.com/wp-content/up...-1-800x729.jpg

I increasingly belief (NB: this is highly speculative) that the opposite is true: under fishing, and the abundance of food, has triggered, or at least facilitate, this behaviour.


At the very least, it’s the reason why their distribution has become increasingly erratic and there are now orcas in Galicia in mid-Summer - highly irregular event by historical patterns. I remember that the orcas would stay in the Gulf during Spring, then move to the Straits during Summer (with some incursions into the Alboran when tuna was scarce) and leave up to north during Autumn. It’s just how it always was (no need to trust my anecdote, there's plenty written about this- eg "Identifying key habitat and seasonal patterns of a critically endangered population of killer whales", Esteban et al).

A few years ago, fishermen started reporting sightings in unexpected places. Last year, they were still near the Algarve in November. They are seen everywhere, even off Lisbon's beaches and at the entrance of the Rias - no living memory of such things-, when sights out of the Cadiz/Straits area used to be very sporadic.
There’s tuna everywhere, so they can go everywhere. They don’t have the energy constraints they used to deal with - this population became at risk when, after the Spanish longlining fleet was decimated by the tuna catch limits, they couldn’t keep depredating tuna off the lines: in the following 5 years, no juvenile survived. A cautionary tale about the dangers of good intentions.

Anyway, the abundance of tuna resulted in bored young orcas with lots of food and energy and a history of interacting with boats - the two juveniles that started this comes from one of the depredating pods and would often follow whale-watching ribs when they were infants while their mothers hunted, swimming belly up. Hardly strange the next step was playing with rudders and force slow boats to stop.

Once again, this is speculative. In any case, overfishing definitely isn't a cause - the last time the eastern atlantic bluefin tuna was overfished was 15 years ago.

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

According to a marine biologist friend of ours, who I asked and who was in e-mail contact with another English speaking one in Portugal, the guys who are interfering with the rudders are adolescents, and their best hypothesis is that it is "play." However, much mammal "play" is about training for obtaining food.

Most experts on this population endorse the view this behavior is akin to dogs chasing bikes - a mix of play and territoriality.

The behavior was started by two juveniles but already in 2020 there was already an adult female joining them [GLADIS Blanca]. Several more have since then. Thankfully a few snapped out of it during last Winter.

What seems to discourage it is motoring slowly astern. No reason for it working, except that it seems to, and it was the local fishermen who discovered that as a tactic, it works..

Marc Herminio is a sailor and marine engineer, not a fisherman. Orcas can’t swim backward, so it poses a new problem for them. Good chance they’ll eventually figure it out though. But so far it's the one method that has proven to be successful time after time.

[Borja]

I think my initial post is lost somewhere waiting for moderators' approval? Probably because I included some links?

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

So, my advice is to stay out of the area. If that is not possible, due to where your boat is, the Portuguese gov't has identified a route out to sea for yachties and others to follow to get out of the whales' feeding and breeding grounds. So, follow their instructions, and be prepared to down sails and motor backwards for a bit. It is what has been shown to be effective.

The Portuguese government hasn’t done such thing and it’s unlikely it’ll do it - orcas are all over the place.

The Spanish government has, in the past, enforced two exclusion areas for sailing, one in Galicia; the other in the Gulf of Cadiz. None of them is currently en force and it’s unlikely they’ll return any time soon as long as orca distribution is so erratic and diluted.

In the past week, there were orcas sightings from Northern Galicia to Trafalgar, with interactions happening in the same day in Camariñas and Sines - governments aren’t going to declare non-sailing zones from Coruña to Gibraltar, basically the entire peninsular Atlantic coast.

There is also an advisory traffic sign system updated by the Orca Iberica working group that is based on recent interactions but it’s by no means a safe route.

Don't plan to sail the Atlantic for the rest of the year, but if I did, I'd be thinking:

- This population of orcas is not found in waters with depths above 900 meters, with a linear progression. Tuna swims too deep there. Most interactions have happened within 20 miles, concentrated within 12 miles. Might make sense to go more offshore sailing the west coast.

- On the other hand, the inside route closely hugging the coast is the best option for the south/Gulf of Cadiz, especially from Cádiz to Barbate going inside the tuna traps and inside the Aceitera shallows.

Of course, it guarantees nothing, there have been interactions 1nm away from the shore.

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So is there an area defined as no go? If so then why go there?

Consider would you try going near a port contested in the Ukraine? Or would you insist that you should be allowed there?

Risk assessment people risk assessment

As above, there are no current no-go areas defined as such. Last year the Spanish government implemented a couple of exclusion zones for sailing and boats under 15m because interactions were highly concentrated in those areas during a certain time period. It helped a bit, but interactions still kept happening elsewhere.

This year it’s not feasible - they’re too widespread. The “risk area” is some 3,000 kms of coastline in Galiza, Portugal, Costa de la Luz and Morocco, also impacting some 95% of the sailboats transiting in and out of the Med, and some of the most popular stopover ports with sailors crossing the Atlantic.

[Borja]

Originally Posted by dr.j.levy

The “do nothing”, fold sails etc approach has proven unhelpful. Loads of stats in the link above. I have read about the reverse strategy (which by the way, is expressly written as illegal under Spanish law), but also about pouring a litter of diesel at the stern (I guess also illegal).

Has anyone heard of a diesel strategy success?

Nope, but to be fair who’s going to publicly admit to dropping diesel in the water?

That said, I’m highly sceptical: the NOAAS has a protocol to keep orcas away from oil spills because they didn’t avoid the Exxon Valdez spill. Hard to imagine they’d keep away because of some diesel.

I’d also be extremely surprised if it hadn’t been tried by Barbate tuna longliners back in the day. They used to carry some pretty big explosives to keep orcas away, without much luck.

Originally Posted by MicHughV

So one must ponder the situation off the coast of Portugal. I would surmise, that sometime in the past, a vessel may have unintentionally killed or maimed one of these creatures. The Orca's inflicting the damage are likely the same pod. I don't think they are attacking the people, rather attacking the boat.

This is extremely unlikely IMO.

In the 90s, early 00s, fishermen would throw everything at the orcas to keep them away from their lines - underwater firecrackers, rocks, shotguns and so on. Moroccan fishermen probably did worse - anyone looking might still find pictures of an orca being fleeced in a Moroccan port circa 2002 or so.

Nothing ever discouraged the orcas or made them start attacking boats. And suddenly, years later, two juveniles that never went through any of that start attacking small and medium sized sailboats over a very improbable event - the individuals in interacting pods are pretty well documented and it wouldn’t be easy for an orca to be born and killed without anyone noticing.

The mainstream theory has always been that cetaceans stay away from boats and ships due to past bad experiences of being maimed. Hard to believe a couple of young orcas living in good times would suddenly become revenge machines. Seems like a theory with heavy doses of anthropomorphism.

Originally Posted by Montanan

"In the event of sighting these mammals, all sailors are advised to turn off the engine, in order to inhibit the rotation of the propeller, and immobilize the rudder door, thus demotivating these mammals to interact with the moving structures of the boats."

This advice by the Portuguese Navy contradicts the (more sensible) protocol endorsed by their government - probably some dude who never sailed anything other than big steel ships. If one is going to stay quiet instead of motoring astern, best to let the wheel lose and stay away from it.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

So is there an area defined as no go? If so then why go there?

Consider would you try going near a port contested in the Ukraine? Or would you insist that you should be allowed there?

Risk assessment people risk assessment

That's the whole Iberian Peninsula..
Wonder if boat prices will start dropping..

[Bullshooter]

Originally Posted by seandepagnier

Agreed completely. These animals are very rare and more intelligent than humans. They have the right to destroy our boats in their sea or do whatever they like to inferior life forms just as I have the right to destroy wasp nests or squash cockroaches. If one of them eats you: it is not a crime. It is simply nature as you are lower on the food chain.

I disagree. What evidence is there that orcas are more intelligent than humans? You seem to imply that if they can kill a human, they are superior. Do you really doubt that humans could kill orcas, given the many types of weapons produced by man? If so, does that give humans the right to do so?

I'm not advocating killing or hurting orcas, but it could be justified if in self-defense, no?

[Franziska]

~10 kHz / 190 dB

Are you sure you've got the dB right? Sounds unreal, a Concorde on take off had about 130dB if I remember rightly...

Btw. interesting thought that the opposite of overfishing might spark this/the presence of Orca all along the coast.

Could it have to do with changing water temperature distribution along the coast as well?

[Borja]

Originally Posted by Franziska

~10 kHz / 190 dB

Are you sure you've got the dB right? Sounds unreal, a Concorde on take off had about 130dB if I remember rightly...

Positive; you can check any of those papers. Keep in mind it's underwater - so 190 dB re 1 µPa at 1 m. It's actually very close to the intensity of whale calls - they can reach 230db or more on the same scale. If you look at manufacturers like FishTek or FutureOceans you'll see that is the normal intensity on their pingers.

Any lower intensity pinger is most likely a placebo. But then again, probably so are these.

Btw. interesting thought that the opposite of overfishing might spark this/the presence of Orca all along the coast.

Could it have to do with changing water temperature distribution along the coast as well?

Directly, I don't see any mechanism; indirectly, even slightly warmer temperatures mean a higher larval survival rate for bluefin tuna because of warmer outliers, so definitely a factor in more tuna, therefore more erratic orcas. The very warm water temperatures in the Balearics in 2003 played a role in how quickly eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks recovered. Process explained here:

https://planettuna.com/en/atlantic-b...zing-recovery/