Why does Gladys the killer whale hunt boats?

killer whale Gladys in recent days, she has become the owner and mistress of social networks. Many jokes and memes glorify what some consider a feat, while others consider it a danger: teach other orcas to attack boats that cross strait of Gibraltar. But why does he do it?

It’s not entirely clear. The biologists who observed him believe that he could have accidentally collided with some vessel in the past, and this left him injured. Therefore, he began to attack other ships. It turns out that killer whales are very social animals. They pass on certain behaviors from generation to generation, such as hunting. So if we visualize attacking ships as a form of hunting, it might turn out to be teaching other family members.

Although it is also known that these cetaceans have a great ability to imitate. Therefore, the companions of Gladys the killer whale can simply imitate what she does when attacking ships. Now it’s really dangerous? It doesn’t seem like it at first. What is clear is that the waters it crosses are their habitat, not the yachts, so it is they who are at risk of crossing a place that does not belong to them.

Gladys the killer whale is not the first to attack the ship

In 2020 the team Spanish and Portuguese scientists began to analyze killer whale attacks between the two countries.

Since then there have been at least 15 aggressive attacks, in which many times the animals were fattened by the rudders of ships. There were no human casualties, so everything was scary, at least in most situations.

On the other hand, it should be noted that the interaction between killer whales and boats in the same time period was 500. This no longer applies to violent attacks, but to any interaction. Of all there was only three sunken ships. In addition, it should be noted that these scientists calculated that when killer whales move around the area, they only interact with one ship out of a hundred.

The case of Gladys the killer whale may be different. She seems to be feeding herself much more anger and that her classmates imitate her. However, there have been no really dangerous attacks so far.

I want to be like you

Killer whales, like other cetaceans, are capable of transmitting large amounts of education. From hunting strategies to social dynamics. They even teach each other their different dialects. And it lies in the fact that the sounds made by killer whales in one place are slightly different from those that live in another point on the map. We can say that it is the same language, but with different dialects.

On the other hand, it should be noted that killer whales hunt in groups called pods, up to 40 people. Sometimes they act like packs of wolvescornering the prey so that it has no way to escape.

In this case, this is not exactly the behavior. It doesn’t look like the entire group has banded together to destroy the ships. It’s just that Gladys the killer whale nods to them, and her companions imitate her.

In short, this is not a proletarian whale that expresses its dissatisfaction with the dictatorship of capital by attacking rich people’s yachts, as some memes say. Including because killer whales are not whales, but we will talk about this another time.