Orcas are ramming yachts off the Spanish coast – is the whale world rising up? | Philip Hoare

One explanation is that their behaviour is a reaction to past trauma inflicted on one member of the pod by humans

Recent accounts of attacks" on vessels by orcas off the Iberian peninsula are challenging the way we expect the natural world to behave. Increasing in number since 2020, from northern Portugal to the strait of Gibraltar, these incidents suggest the need for a cetacean scene investigation team. On 4 May, in one of the most extreme events, orcas sank a yacht.

There were two smaller orcas and one larger," the skipper Werner Schaufelberger told German magazine Yacht. The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the boat with full force from the side."