[imagesource:animalia]

For the past four years, orcas have been smashing and sinking luxury yachts in European waters, and scientists have been trying to figure out why these intelligent, social creatures have picked up this deadly new habit.

As it turns out, it’s got nothing to do with territory and violence, nor does it stem from some anticapitalist ‘eat the rich’ goal.

In actuality, it’s a trend started by the kids.

Following years of research, a team of biologists, government officials and marine industry representatives have now released their findings on why one particular Orcinus orca group has developed this destructive streak. It turns out, orcas – especially the kids and teens – just want to have fun.

The report reveals that a combination of free time, curiosity and natural playfulness has led to young orcas adopting this ‘trend’ of boat-bumping, which is not at all surprising for a species that has been known to adopt odd, isolated behaviours from time to time.

A recent dramatic recovery in the population of bluefin tuna in the region has been a win for a group of about 40 critically endangered Iberian killer whales that feed exclusively on these large fish. This has meant they’ve cut down their time spent foraging, leaving space for other ‘hobbies.’ In other words, the kids got bored and decided to play with boats.

“This year-round abundance means that there appears to no longer be a need for the whales to pursue every fish encountered.”

Analysing data collected from individual orcas and through observation, the scientists found that the ‘attacks’ on vessels usually involved a couple of animals at a time, from a core group of 15 that have so far been observed messing with boats. But these ‘attacks’ are anything but – from the orcas’ perspective, at least.

The 15, mostly male juveniles and teens, the “most curious and exploratory” of an orca population, suggest that what started as playful head-bumping on boat rudders has escalated as the animals have grown larger. The team notes that this rudder-bumping behaviour was observed around 2017, but the interactions didn’t result in any boat damage.

Now that the orcas are larger, their game has become a lot more powerful. No orca over the age of 25 – when males are fully grown – has been seen participating in the ‘game’. Scientists suspect younger orcas have seen older siblings playing with their rudder ‘toys’ and then copied.

“Killer whales are known to play with other objects or animals in their environment to the point of damaging them (in the southern resident killer whale population of Washington, USA, which feed on salmon, individuals will ‘play’ with harbour porpoises to the point of killing them, which may be a similar escalation of an initially less harmful interaction), so this behaviour seems on that spectrum.”

The animals are known to be sensitive to trends, with scientists having observed odd new behaviours spreading through a pod like a TikTok challenge, only to be forgotten just as quickly.

Perhaps most famously, in 1987, a female orca in the Pacific Ocean near Puget Sound was observed carrying a dead salmon on her head; within two months, killer whales from her pod and two others were also wearing ‘fish hats.’

 

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Some populations may also develop unusual and temporary behavioural ‘fads’ and other idiosyncrasies that do not appear to serve any obvious purpose. How very human.

“In an ideal world, there would be a simple strategy for mariners to follow when killer whales interact, which would avoid vessel damage and harm to the whales. Unfortunately, there appears to be no such panacea,” the authors of the study wrote.

“The singular agreement amongst the experts at this workshop is that the interactions between Iberian killer whales and vessels are not aggressive. The interactions have more elements consistent with fad behaviour or play/socialising than aggression. The use of such terms as ‘attack’ to describe these interactions is thus inappropriate, misleading and should cease.”

It’s both comforting and terrifying to think that youngsters of different species are all the same in some way.

[source:newatlas]