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Orca rams into yacht near Scotland, suggesting the behavior may be spreading
- glogla 3y agoI wonder what kind of gun would you need to chase away an orca. I'm going to assume 9mm wouldn't even penetrate their thick skin and subskin fat.
- mattkrause 3y agoI'm skeptical anything (reasonable) would be able to shoot through several feet of water.
- droffel 3y agoHarpoon guns are designed to do exactly that.
- pinkcan 3y agoyea, let's equip boats that can't handle an orca with guns that shoot projectiles through meters of water it's like trying to solve school shooting, by giving teachers guns
- dbish 3y agoSadly this seems to be an approach a large chunk of people actually want to try. Lots of folks out there who are not equipped to make suggestions
- yetanotherloser 3y agoI have never, ever met a yachtsman who wants to carry any kind of anti orca weaponry. Let's not exaggerate here.
- dbish 3y agoLol. Referring to arming teachers not boaters (I’m a sailor myself, yet to hear anyone wanting one)
- yetanotherloser 3y agoAh. Sorry, I got the wrong end of the stick there!
- dbish 3y agoHa. No worries. Anaphoric resolution can be ambiguous. I blame the English language.
- someweirdperson 3y agoMaximum depth of penetration is the ratio of the densities of the projectile and the matter to be penetrated times the length of the projectile. Harpoons have a higher density than water and are quite long, so they work.
- p0pcult 3y ago[dead]
- tempaccount420 3y agoHopefully no one tries to find out. There's only 50k orcas in the world, they're more valuable than us.
- echelon 3y ago> There's only 50k orcas in the world, they're more valuable than us. Species diversity is unquestionably important. This small population of intelligent aquatic mammals is unique and beautiful and valuable. The eons of evolutionary hill climbing that led to them cannot be reproduced. They're a distillation of all that has happened to their lineage up to this point, and that's beautiful. That said, the only apparent species capable of getting us off this rock and avoiding the total annihilation of all life are humans. If we die off and another intelligence emerges later on, all of the easily accessible energy for industrialization and getting us out of the gravity well may be gone. This is our one, best shot. When our sun dies, none of this will have mattered at all. If we're still stuck on this earth, we may as well have never even existed. A brief brilliant flash that led to nothing and was forgotten. The existential counter to that is if we can make it beyond our solar system. Maybe we evolve beyond our current biological forms, maybe computers become our custodians, who knows. Maybe some future super intellect revives all of the state leading up to it, and maybe we'll become (or already are) holographic simulations of what once was: memories of our world. With respect to the geologic timescale and the fate of earth intelligence and biology, humans matter way more than orcas. That isn't to say we shouldn't go to great lengths to preserve orcas. But there's a much bigger story at play, and we shouldn't discount our place in it.
- AnotherGoodName 3y agoIt's not particularly harmful fwiw. A yacht sinking due to an orca would have sunk due to a strong wave. Also it seems the orcas are bored. If Hvaldimir is anything to go by a ball would be a good solution here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvaldimir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hvaldimir
- yetanotherloser 3y agoThey've not yet shown any sign of being a danger to the hull as far as I know. They pretty often break the rudder off leaving the boat difficult to control. Most long distance sailors would carry some kind of emergency rudder arrangement but more casual coastal types don't usually. Speculation among sailors is that "hey, did you know you can break bits off those things?" is as plausible an explanation as any. There are known ways to scare orcas off but it's illegal to distress them and nobody really wants to. I certainly don't.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]
- SketchySeaBeast 3y agoWhile I don't much care about the yachts and find the fact that the behaviour is spreading fascinating, my fear out of all this is people will start hurting the whales to try to get them to stop.
- serf 3y agothere is bound to be some kind of response if this remains a trend; and given that some of these boats are having their fin/bulb keels seemingly targeted by these animals means that the crews of the boats are in some greater level of mortal peril than is already provided by the hobby.. I feel bad for the animals, but sailing doesn't seem to be going anywhere as a global interest and boats produced are getting to be more and more fragile in the search for performance. I imagine that it's only a matter of time until there will be a violent reaction when a crew feels that they're in mortal danger -- all I can hope for is that it produces a recognition of danger that also sweeps through the Orca community as a trend and they start to avoid yachts for the sake of both parties. When I watch the videos I just kind of think it's like watching a cat scratching themselves and rubbing up against anything with an edge on my desk. Wholly benign behavior that is a detriment simply due to their scale compared to us.
- shreyshnaccount 3y agoI totally understand where you are coming from but the palatable entitlement of our species is at its peak when we say something like this
- mjh2539 3y agoI don't think I'd call it entitled; perhaps half a million years ago, but today, no.
- lost_tourist 3y agoSeems like it would be better to disallow sailing in Portugal than trying to wipe out all the orcas in their waters
- 3y ago
- aurizon 3y agoJust add a low voltage electric fence to 2 plates glued underwater at port and starboard. Salt water conducts, also Orca's conduct - some small current flow that will be repellant to the Orca's, but not harmful. They do this to repel carp swimming upriver. one of those, with proper voltage and current limiting should be felt by an orca, but not harm the orca. A little experimentation will find a safe repellant level.
- Pulcinella 3y agoBRB, passing these plans to the Orcas so they can start working on a work-around.
- Handprint4469 3y agoThis is how the fins race starts
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- belter 3y agoUse encryption and digital signatures. You might be subject to a fish-in-the-middle attack.
- micromacrofoot 3y agoorcas are really really big though (~6000lbs)? seems like this might not scale up… or if it did it might be deadly for smaller creatures?
- Pulcinella 3y ago"Orca defends home near Scotland, suggesting they don't want to be pushed around anymore."
- logicchains 3y agoAny bets on what comes first: sapient AIs or sapient Orcas?
- FooBarBizBazz 3y agoI'd say that orcas are already sentient and have been for a long time.
- xena 3y agoI'd be willing to argue that "sentient" is a bad word. These creatures are capable of transmitting complicated ideas. That means they have wisdom. This means they are sapient, not sentient. Sentient means they are able to respond to input, but we don't go around and call HTTP servers sentient.
- hombre_fatal 3y agoWe don’t call HTTP servers sentient because that’s not the definition of sentience. Having a subjective experience defines sentience.
- FooBarBizBazz 3y agoThat's a distinction I hadn't paid attention to before. Yeah, it would seem orcas have both -- sentence and sapience. And the sapience is more interesting / less immediately obvious.
- marcosdumay 3y agoWell, sapient orcas came a long time ago, so I guess it's settled.
- Y_Y 3y agoSapient pearwood
- tmtvl 3y agoHave we found wrecks of yachts damaged as though kicked very hard by 1,000 feet?
- kitsunesoba 3y agoIt's a bit surprising that something like this didn't start happening sooner. It's not as if one can expect to mosey through the territory of large intelligent land predators completely unassailed.
- thatguy0900 3y agoWell if you're in a vehicle you can. I suppose the equivalent of this would be a rash of rural road incidents with grizzly bears attacking cars.
- addisonl 3y ago[flagged]
- Nasrudith 3y agoI thought territoriality was more a thing for "peer" sizes. Adult lions don't chase mice for invading territory. And while foxes may be highly territorial they aren't stupid enough to try to attack say a bear for invading.
- iambateman 3y agoThe fact that we’re calling the ringleader “White Gladis” makes this story so much better.
- swid 3y agoThis American Life just did a segment where the experts were very skeptical of both the theories presented in this article - that the first encounters near Spain were caused by a traumatic event of a matriarch, and also that orca pods would communicate with each other to spread the behavior. The theory presented in that segment was the first orcas are sort of like rowdy teenagers participating in a fad, and the newer event near Scotland was something of a coincidence. It’s a good segment regardless of what you think, and the first half of the episode was one of the better reports of ChatGPT I have heard, so also of interest to people here. The name of the episode is “Greetings, People of Earth.”
- _fat_santa 3y ago> orcas are sort of like rowdy teenagers participating in a fad That sounds more amazing to me than the theory of the traumatic event, an Ocra equivalent to a TikTok trend.
- adrianhon 3y agoSeconding! You can find the specific segment (only 7 min!) here! https://www.thisamericanlife.org/803/greetings-people-of-earth/act-three-4 https://www.thisamericanlife.org/803/greetings-people-of-ear...
- anigbrowl 3y ago
- raziel2701 3y agoOrcas are orcanizing! Orcas are cultural animals that are similar to us in that fads are a thing for them. A while back they had a fad where they'd kill a salmon and wear it as a hat. I think this is a fad, they're having fun, it'll pass. These headlines are so fun!
- Jcowell 3y agoWould it possible for eating humans to be a fad? and then not a dad because they then find out we taste good?
- CoolGuySteve 3y agoHopefully a nefarious actor doesn't start training the orcas to engage in criminal activity. It has happened before with penguins, please refer to the excellent documentary, Batman Returns.
- cbfrench 3y ago> Orcas are orcanizing! You might even say they’re orcastrating these attacks. It’s delphinidaely something worth paying attention to.
- drewcoo 3y ago> A while back they had a fad where they'd kill a salmon and wear it as a hat. It was the 80s, dude. Big hair was radical! https://www.gearrice.com/update/in-the-80s-an-orca-made-it-fashionable-to-wear-salmon-as-a-hat/ https://www.gearrice.com/update/in-the-80s-an-orca-made-it-f...
- fasthands9 3y agoI dont really get how this is suggested seriously as a new behavior. The inspiration for Moby Dick, one of the most read books in English, was based on a ship sunk my sperm whales: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_(whaleship) Yes I know orcas and sperm whales are different, but its weird that this is suggested a new behavior in general. And not just a new counting of something that has been going on for centuries.
- echelon 3y agoOrcas haven't been ramming boats for decades. Now, all of a sudden, we're seeing the behavior crop up all over the place. This is new behavior that is being communicated and taught. Imagine when they discover that there are calorie sources aboard the ships. Orcas are known to eat terrestrial mammals such as swimming deer and moose. They've been observed hunting swimming dogs.
- elorant 3y agoIf they wanted to eat humans they had plenty of chances. Incidents where an orca attacked a human are rare, with the notable exception of orcas in captivity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orca_attacks
- echelon 3y ago> If they wanted to eat humans they had plenty of chances. Have they, though? Captive orcas aren't opportunistically hunting with their pod, and they're constantly kept fed. Their behaviors are reinforced. Apart from captivity, human swimmers seldom interact in the wild. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Orcas eat land mammals, and we have plenty of evidence for that.
- elorant 3y agoOrcas are dolphins. Humans are in pretty friendly terms with them. Here's an incident where a bunch of swimmers came in close proximity to orcas. They seem quite friendly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3mDXF3bcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3mDXF3bcE
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago[flagged]
- blondie9x 3y agoWe have caused the Halocene extinction. Our wasteful lifestyles are the virus of the planet. The overconsumed. The technologists who think our devices and social media and VR are a substitute to blind us from the truth. We are destroying our planet. That’s reality. Our devices and travel are our escape. “You are not special. You're not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We're all part of the same compost heap. We're all singing, all dancing crap of the world.“ It’s humbling to see nature trying somehow to fight back against us. Their goal. For us to chill more and be more content. What if mankind just lives in peace and balance with nature? No plastic. Carbon balance. Nothing added annually that wouldn’t be taken back and fixed anew by nature. Greenhouse gases back at 350 ppm. What if?
- lost_tourist 3y agoThese whales are just playing around and you declare they are the Che Gueveras of the ocean?
- ekvintroj 3y agoGoogle Gladys Orca, here in Argentina one of them was hit and then they started to pursuit and attack Yachts.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- iancmceachern 3y agoI think they learned that there is tasty meat wrapped in nylon wrappers in those piñatas
- dmvdoug 3y agoNot going to lie, friends: I’m rooting for the whales.
- cowthulhu 3y agoThe orcas are attacking small sailboats, which tend to have less of an environmental impact… less engine use, quiet, fewer people on board, very small scale fishing (if at all). It’s weird to be rooting against this sort of ship when cruise ships and trawlers are the real problem - and also pretty difficult to attack. Will you count it as a success if people favor larger powerboats over small sailboats?
- dmvdoug 3y agoOh, I think you misunderstood. I’m rooting for the whales as against all the humans. ;)
- ThisIsNowhere 3y agoI know I'm on HN when someone is explaining why the "woke" ideology of the orcas attacking yachts is ultimately futile.
- someweirdperson 3y agoTry to explain that to the Orcas. They are killing those baby boats before they grow into big evil loud adults.
- cowthulhu 3y agoI’m not explaining any ideology… definitely don’t think of Orcas in terms of “woke” or not. Just stating that rooting for the orcas is rooting for something fairly self-defeating.
- sh34r 3y agoGaia is fighting back. Nature is healing. As the great George Carlin said: the planet isn’t going anywhere, we are!
- mcpackieh 3y agoI've never believed that orcas have always left humans alone. I think they began leaving humans alone when commercial whaling took off and they witnessed first hand how dangerous humans can be to whales. Maybe that generational memory is now fading. Yeah I know the argument that humans are too bony and taste bad, but how would they know we taste bad if they never even take a nibble to taste test us? These are very intelligent mammals, they should be curious about how we taste. Am I to believe that sharks are more inquisitive and willing to experiment with food than orcas?
- solumunus 3y agoSharks are dumb. They’re not experimenting they’re making mistakes.
- mcpackieh 3y agoSharks are much dumber than orcas but that's not saying much. They do take experimental nibbles on people, and occasionally follow through and actually eat people.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> These are very intelligent mammals, they should be curious about how we taste. Maybe they're intelligent enough to recognize our intelligence, and don't want to attack other intelligent beings?
- mcpackieh 3y agoMaybe, but they don't seem to have much pity/respect for other intelligent animals. Particularly, they devour baby whales of other species.
- thatwasunusual 3y agoSo do we, _and_ we attack our "own intelligence."
- 3y ago
- gcanyon 3y agoThis is not the first time orcas have shown an awareness of us in boats: through the second half of the 1800s orcas in Australia actually helped whalers hunt baleen whales: herding the prey, and even grabbing ropes in their mouths to help haul, in exchange for the most valuable (to them) parts of the carcasses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_South_Wales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_New_Sou... Old Tom, one of the most helpful orcas, died in 1930. His skeleton is on display at a museum, and the wear marks from the ropes are visible on his teeth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca)
- j-bos 3y agoPhenomenal history, thanks for sharing.
- mustacheemperor 3y agoDied in 1930 when a whaler tried to bring the carcass in early, before Tom had his share (there was a storm approaching). Tom lost teeth grabbing the tow rope and washed up deceased with oral abscesses some time later. This was after most of the pod of killer whales had disappeared - thought maybe hunted down in Norway. Whaling is fascinating history. But it is very sad.
- vintagedave 3y ago> thought maybe hunted down in Norway Are you sure? I don't know much about orcas but that's a very long way to track the same whales. The Wikipedia article [1] states Norwegian whalers a little further north in Jervis Bay, still in Australian waters. I fully agree, whaling is a very sad history. As a kid, I occasionally saw "whale pots", big iron cauldrons used for boiling down blubber (I suppose.) I thought they were really cool. I don't think so any more. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca)#Death_and_the_end_of_whaling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tom_(orca)#Death_and_the_e...
- mustacheemperor 3y ago
- bigmattystyles 3y agoThese TikTok trends are getting out of hand.
- 29athrowaway 3y agoGo team Orca. Humans are jerks. Sonar makes orcas bleed from their ears. Orcas are also used as circus animals (i.e.: SeaWorld), and some of them get so aggravated that they commit suicide by bumping their heads against the pool walls. Orcas should attack more often, I fully approve of it. In fact, we should help orcas multiply in numbers so that the yacht enthusiasts get displaced and leave the sea to the creatures doing a free service for the environment.
- mannyv 3y ago"Hey guys, if we bump these floating things snacks come out!"
- RadixDLT 3y agoLooks like the orcas in Scotland are taking their nautical skills to the next level! Seems like they've got some new ideas on how to navigate the high seas. Watch out, sailors!
- dang 3y agoRelated. Others? 'Scary moment' as orcas disrupt ocean boat race - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36452464 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36452464 - June 2023 (89 comments) Orcas sink 3 boats in Europe and appear to teach others to do the same. But why? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36006861 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36006861 - May 2023 (21 comments) Orcas are breaking rudders off boats in Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32593799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32593799 - Aug 2022 (239 comments) Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32540473 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32540473 - Aug 2022 (9 comments) Orcas striking sailing boats in the Straits of Gibraltar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24460126 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24460126 - Sept 2020 (154 comments)
- SkipperCat 3y agoIt is obvious that orcas are now engaging in TikTok challenges. Social media has crossed into the seafaring mammals. It was only a matter of time...
- fallingfrog 3y agoThe “blackfish” documentary on one of sea world’s orcas talks about how they captured baby orcas. It’s pretty heartbreaking. https://youtu.be/-zXMxBtBPJo https://youtu.be/-zXMxBtBPJo The most amazing part is how clever the orcas were while trying to avoid capture. The young and their mothers dove down deep and then swam towards a river where they surfaced while the other adults swam along the surface to lead the boats away. It’s hard to imagine a group of humans coming up with a better plan, and it’s hard to imagine how to execute that plan without some kind of language.
- INTPenis 3y agoI'm a complete layperson but reading articles lately it seems that the whale population in general is recovering, due to regulations and a halted whale hunting. So could this be a side-effect of a larger whale population? More whales, higher statistical probability to attack some human boat. There are after all thousands of human controlled vessels in the sea at any time. Ancient texts indicate that these were monsters to be feared, so maybe back in ancient times, before whale hunting became efficient, this was a frequent danger.
- Animats 3y agoWe're going to need a bigger boat.
- codethief 3y agoA friend recently reminded me that whales attacking boats is precisely how The Swarm[0] starts. I don't want to spoil the book here but it's among the best I've ever read, and might be of interest to anyone here who's into SciFi. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(Sch%C3%A4tzing_novel) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swarm_(Sch%C3%A4tzing_no...
- floehopper 3y ago> In June 1972, the 43-foor schooner Lucette was attacked by killer whales and sank in 60 seconds. What happened next is almost incredible... https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/167105 https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/167105
- fho 3y agoThe formatting in title is hilarious... It could be read as: "Orca rams into yacht near Scotland, [he is] suggesting the behavior may be spreading" I somehow imagine an orca in top hat, kindly suggesting that he will continue to ram other yachts if some conditions are not met :-)
- tough 3y agoFirst reports in Spain (2017ish) were faked by narco's to get free ride to the port and unload their shit while the attention was on the killer orcas
- pvaldes 3y agoCetaceans travel. Could be perfectly the same dolphin It was funny to see Alfredo mentioned here.