French sailboat, with four crew on board, sunk following interaction with orcas

[boatman61]

Some like the Mandurah dolphin just eat squid apparently...
Others are more specialised..

[paralog]

Originally Posted by catsketcher

I am not a whale researcher but Orca do have culture and tight communities. For example in the Pacific Northwest there are Orca that eat seals and dolphins that will not eat fish, and there are other pods that do eat fish. Same species, different culture.

I read that a couple of years ago an immature orca was killed by a yacht in the area. With their incredible intelligence, it could be that a certain pod, or groups of pods now see yachts as a threat, and react accordingly.

Thankfully for me, in Australia we have nice whales, mostly humpbacks, that seem to not mind us, but we have false killer whales and pilot whales too. Orca pods are making a bit of a comeback.

(Most scared I have ever been with whales was 2 miles offshore when trying to whale watch in my 5.8 metre kayak. The whales I was looking at went away and then surfaced all around me. I felt very insignificant for a few minutes and would recommend a bigger whale watching boat)

Residents, Transients and Pelagic Orca's all have different diets. The resident here on Vancouver Island only eat Chinook Salmon, Transients eat seals, Pelagics are believed to eat sharks, World wide they eat other types of prey, penquins etc some only eat Manta Rays. Overall a fascinating creature. It's time the researchers need to get really involved in this and find out why they are doing this and what folks can do to stop this learned behaviour as it is likely to continue and make boating in that area unsafe for years to come.

[PaulCrawhorn]

Originally Posted by leboyd

the biologist won’t ever really be able to say whether it’s play or not, and some (many/most?) have been keen to protect animals more than humans.

Quite rightly

[SVTatia]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Perhaps this only reflects the fact that the majority of newish yachts are equipped with spade rudders...



Jim

Good point, most of the boats sailing down are new ones.
I guess we need old long keel/rudder attached boats to sail down that coast.
Maybe not, ust a thought.

[Cwens]

Originally Posted by SVTatia

Interesting that most of these "interactions" are on boats with spade rudders - statiscs below.

https://www.orcaiberica.org/characte...eracting-ships

[DMF Sailing]

Originally Posted by paralog

Residents, Transients and Pelagic Orca's all have different diets. The resident here on Vancouver Island only eat Chinook Salmon, Transients eat seals, Pelagics are believed to eat sharks, World wide they eat other types of prey, penquins etc some only eat Manta Rays. Overall a fascinating creature. It's time the researchers need to get really involved in this and find out why they are doing this and what folks can do to stop this learned behaviour as it is likely to continue and make boating in that area unsafe for years to come.

In addition, orcas are actually dolphins.

So, instead of comparing them to such bucolic giants as humpbacks or finbacks, consider thinking of a juvenile orca as Flipper on steroids, with attitude, not sure if he's a calf or a whale, and...he likes it

or if that don't track for you, consider this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSxuXsyanCI