orca affonda yacht

Killer Whales Are Not Our Friends

Stop rooting for the orcas ramming boats.

In recent months, orcas in the waters off the Iberian Peninsula have taken to ramming boats. The animals have already sunk three this year and damaged several more. After one of the latest incidents , in which a catamaran lost both of its rudders, the boat’s captain suggested that the assailants have grown stealthier and more efficient : “Looks like they knew exactly what they are doing,” he said. Scientists have documented hundreds of orca-boat incidents off the Spanish-Portuguese coast since 2020, but news coverage of these attacks is blowing up right now, thanks in part to a creative new theory about why they’re happening: cetacean vengeance . Now that’s a story!

“The orcas are doing this on purpose,” Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, told LiveScience last month. “Of course, we don’t know the origin or the motivation, but defensive behavior based on trauma, as the origin of all this, gains more strength for us every day.” López Fernandez, who co-authored a 2022 paper on human-orca interactions in the Strait of Gibraltar, speculates that a specific female, known to scientists as White Gladis, may have suffered a “critical moment of agony” at the hands of humans, attacked a boat in retaliation, and then taught other whales to do the same.

Whatever the truth of this assertion, White Gladis and her kin have quickly ascended to folk-heroic status on the internet. “What the marine biologists are framing as revenge based on one traumatic experience may be a piece of a larger mobilization towards balance,” the poet Alexis Pauline Gumbs tweeted before referring to the killer whales as “revolutionary mother teachers.” Media figures and academics are expressing solidarity with their “ orca comrades ” and support for “ orca saboteurs .” One widely circulating graphic shows a pod smashing a boat from below, above the words “JOIN THE ORCA UPRISING.” (You can even purchase it in sparkly sticker form.) Yet all of this fandom and projection tends to overlook important facts: First, these orcas are likely to be playing with the boats rather than attacking them, and second, if one insists on judging killer whales in human terms, it’s plain to see they aren’t heroes but sadistic jerks.

The recent incidents, none of which has resulted in any injuries to humans, are simply the result of curiosity, Monika Wieland Shields, the co-director of the Orca Behavior Institute in Washington, told me. A juvenile may have started interacting in this way with boats, she said, and then its habit spread through the local community of killer whales. Such cultural trends have been observed before: In the Pacific Northwest, orcas have been playing with buoys and crab pots for years; in the late 1980s, one group of orcas there famously took to wearing salmon hats . Is ramming boats the new donning fish ? Shields believes that theory makes more sense than López Fernandez’s appeal to orca trauma. White Gladis shows no physical evidence of injury or trauma, Shields told me, so any “critical moment of agony” is purely speculative. Also, humans have given orcas ample reason to retaliate for hundreds of years. We’ve invaded their waters, kidnapped their young, and murdered them in droves. And yet, there is not a single documented instance of orcas killing humans in the wild. Why would they react only now?

Read: 7 reasons killer whales are evil geniuses

And though recent events may fit the story of these orcas’ being anti-colonial warriors, you can’t just anthropomorphize animals selectively. What about all the other “evidence” we have of orcas’ cruelty, or even wickedness? Scientists say they hunt and slaughter sharks by the dozen, picking out the liver from each one and leaving the rest of the carcasses to rot uneaten. Orcas kill for sport . They push, drag, and spin around live prey, including sea turtles , seabirds, and sea lions. Some go so far as to risk beaching themselves in order to snag a baby seal—not to consume, but simply to torture it to death. Once you start applying human ethical standards to apex predators, things turn dark fast.

Perhaps #orcauprising was inevitable. Humanity does have, after all, a long history of freighting cetaceans with higher meaning. Moby Dick is, among other things, a symbol of the sublime . The biblical whale—or is it a large fish?—that swallows Jonah is an instrument of divine retribution, a means of punishing the wicked in much the same way some have framed the boat-wrecking orcas. The whale 52 Blue, known as the loneliest whale in the world because she speaks in a frequency inaudible, or at least incomprehensible, to her brethren, has become a canvas for all shades of human sorrow and angst.

Orcas in particular have long been objects of both fear and sympathy, in some cases with an explicitly anti-capitalist tint. The 1993 classic Free Willy centers on a conniving park owner’s scheme to profit off of the bond between a child and a young killer whale. And more recently, the 2013 documentary Blackfish chronicles SeaWorld’s real-life exploitation of captive orcas. The “orca uprising” narrative fits neatly into this lineage. In our present era of environmental catastrophe, Shields told me, it’s appealing to think that nature might fight back, that the villains get their just deserts.

But projection and anthropomorphization are only shortcuts to a shallow sympathy. Orcas really are capable of intense grief ; they are also capable of tormenting seal pups as a hobby. They are intelligent, emotionally complex creatures. But they are not us.

Why are orcas attacking boats and sometimes sinking them?

After four years and hundreds of incidents, researchers remain puzzled why orcas, also known as killer whales, continue to ram boats – sinking a few of them – along the Iberian Peninsula. The most-recent incident was the sinking of a yacht on Oct. 31 in the Strait of Gibraltar.

The origin of these interactions remain a "great mystery," said Alfredo López, a University of Santiago biologist, but he does not believe the behavior is aggressive. Orcas are large dolphins, López said. And like dolphins, the events could stem from the orcas’ curious and playful behavior, such as trying to race the boats.

López, who specializes in orcas, and his team, Grupo de trabajo Orca Atlántica (GOTA) , have tracked these encounters since 2020. The team’s recent study theorizes the orcas could also be exhibiting cautionary behavior because of some previous traumatic incident.

Where have killer whales interacted with boats?

GOTA has tracked more than 350 interactions just on the Iberian Peninsula since 2020. Most have taken place along the Strait of Gibraltar, but the orcas’ mischief or self-defense may be spreading north. An incident was reported in June in the  Shetland Islands in Scotland .

GOTA defines interactions as instances when orcas react to the presence of approaching boats, such as:

• Interaction without physical contact.
• Some physical contact without damage.
• Contact that causes serious damage that could prevent the navigation of the boat.

Recent incidents when orcas attacked boats and sank them

The Oct. 31 incident occurred in the Strait of Gibraltar where a pod of orcas sank a mid-size sailing yacht named the Grazie Mamma after a 45-minute interaction,  Live Science reported . 

On June 19 an orca rammed a 7-ton yacht multiple times off the Shetland Islands in Scotland, according to an account from retired Dutch physicist Dr. Wim Rutten in the Guardian.

"Killer whales are capable of traveling large distances, so it is not out of the ordinary that an animal could travel that far," said Tara Stevens, a marine scientist at CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. "To my knowledge, this data is not available, so we cannot confirm at this time if these are the same animals." 

Including the Oct. 31 incident, orcas have sunk four boats this year. The previous sinking occured in May , off the coasts of Portugal and Spain, but whale expert Anne Gordon told USA TODAY  in May that the incidents shouldn't heighten concerns about the whales.

"Yes, they're killer whales. And yes, their job is to be predators in the ocean, but in normal circumstances there is absolutely zero threat to humans in a boat," Gordon said .

Most of the interactions have involved sailboats, but fishing boats, semi-rigid boats and motorboats haven’t gone unscathed. 

Are these the same killer whales attacking boats or unrelated incidents?

López hypothesizes that the interactions could be a self-induced behavior where you're "inventing something new and repeat it. This behavior coincides with the profile of the juveniles." He said it could also be response to an aversive situation: "One or several individuals had lived a bad experience and tried to stop the boat so as not to repeat it. This behavior coincides with the profile of adults."

"Fifteen different orcas from at least three different communities" have been identified, López said. And they are probably teaching the habit to others, or the others are mimicking the behavior. "Without a doubt orcas learn by imitation," López said.  The majority of the culprits are juveniles that touch, push and sometimes turn the vessels. He noted that adult males don't appear to be involved.

"Killer whales are incredibly intelligent animals that do learn behaviors from observation of other individuals," Stevens said. "Typically, very unique behaviors such as this are learned 'within' group, meaning individuals of the group may learn from each other and participate, but that does not necessarily mean that the behavior is shared outside the group with other individuals."

Which pods of killer whales are battering the boats?

Orcas operate in a social structure called a pod. These pods generally are a group of several generations of related orcas. Hierarchies are established within them, and they communicate and learn from one another, the study reads.

GOTA researchers have identified the individuals responsible for the interactions . One large pod is made up of three generations. It starts with grandmother Gladis Lamari, her daughter, grandchildren and a few other relatives.

Another pod comprises siblings Gladis Negra and Gladis Peque. Both have been photographed interacting with boats. Their mother, Gladis Herbille, has generally just watched her children at a distance from the boats, the study said.

A third group in the study are siblings and a cousin.

Orcas often tracking bluefin tuna

The movements of orcas depend on the location of their main food source, bluefin tuna. The migratory movements of tuna are very dynamic and predicting exactly where interactions will take place is very difficult, the report said. According to NOAA , Atlantic bluefin tuna are the largest in the tuna family and can reach a length of 13 feet and up to 2,000 pounds. They are a highly migratory species and can migrate thousands of miles across an entire ocean.

About the Iberian orcas

While they are called killer whales, orcas are actually the largest member of the dolphin family. This aquatic marine mammal family includes whales, dolphins and porpoises.

The Iberian orca is a subpopulation of the Atlantic orca population. These orcas are from the Strait of Gibraltar and the Gulf of Cádiz. Iberian orcas are small: 16 to 21 feet compared with Atlantic orcas that measure almost 30 feet.

Orcas in general are fast, reaching speeds up to 27.6 mph. By comparison, a 39-foot sailboat travels at about 9.2 mph.

What should you do if your boat is attacked by killer whales

The study recommended these tips to reduce the duration and intensity of the interaction.

• Stop the boat.
• Leave the rudder loose.
• Radio for help.

According to the GOTA study, most of the vessels involved in interactions are medium-sized (less than 49 feet) sailboats, with a paddle rudder, sailing at an average of 6.9 mph, under both sail and motor.

The interactions have been mostly concentrated in the spring and summer months and have been concentrated in the midday hours. They've lasted on average for 40 minutes, but several last less than 30 minutes. 

Types of rudders Iberian orcas have approached

"It is very common for dolphins to interact with the boats and approach," López said. "Before 2020, the orcas did it with frequency but they weren't classified as attacks. Now, sometimes they touch the boat and the encounter is unfairly classified as an attack. They judge socially before understanding what (orcas) do."

Why are killer whales going ‘Moby-Dick’ on yachts lately? Experts doubt it’s revenge

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The attacks started suddenly and inexplicably in the spring of 2020 — pods of endangered killer whales began ramming yachts and fishing boats in European waters, pushing some off course and imperiling others.

Since then, there have been more than 500 reports of orca encounters off the Iberian Peninsula, the most recent occurring Thursday when a trio of whales rubbed against and bumped a racing sloop in the Strait of Gibraltar.

In most cases, the financial and structural damage has ranged from minimal to moderate: Boats have been spun and pushed, and rudders have been smashed and destroyed. Three vessels have been so badly mauled, they’ve sunk.

As the encounters continue, shaky video captured by thrilled and fearful seafarers has ignited a global internet sensation, while experts have struggled to explain the behavior and its timing. The seemingly militant whales have also won over a legion of adoring fans — many transfixed by the notion that the mammals are targeting rich people and exacting revenge for all the wrongs humanity has waged on their species and their ocean home.

Two dozen killer whales spotted celebrating a hunt off the San Francisco coast

The unusually large group spotted near the Farallon Islands was possibly a meeting of six or seven families.

June 7, 2023

Others wonder if the unusually large pods of multi-ton cetaceans now appearing off the coasts of San Francisco , Monterey and Nantucket, Mass., may soon follow suit.

Despite such rampant speculation on social media, most killer whale scientists have offered a very different interpretation. The Moby-Dick “revenge” narrative for the behavior is highly unlikely, they say.

“That just doesn’t sit right with me,” said Deborah Giles, an orca researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of Wild Orca, a Washington-based conservation research organization.

She noted that despite the long history of orcas being hunted by whalers — and more recently marine parks — these top ocean predators have typically demonstrated a lack of aggression toward humans. There are no verified instances of orcas killing humans in the wild. The only deaths have occurred in marine parks and aquariums, where animals taken from the wild and forced to perform for humans in small tanks have attacked their trainers.

“So, I just don’t really see it as an agonistic activity; I just don’t see it going down like that,” said Giles, who has studied killer whales in the Pacific Ocean, Puget Sound and the Salish Sea for nearly 20 years.

Instead, she thinks the animals are engaging with boats because the vessels are “either making an interesting vibration or sound, or maybe it’s the way the water moves past the keels that is intriguing to these animals.”

The scientific literature is rife with anecdotes and research showing high cognition, playfulness and sociality in the species known as Orcinus orca — and examples of what appear to be the cultural transmission of new behaviors, either via teaching or observation.

In 1987, a female orca in the Pacific waters off North America was spotted sporting a dead salmon on her head. Within weeks, individuals in two other pods also began wearing fish hats. The trend lasted a few months and fizzled out within a year.

In South Africa, the killing of white sharks appears to be growing in popularity among a resident group of killer whales in the waters near Cape Town; Giles has watched a local trend of “phocoenacide” — porpoise killing — grow among a group of whales off the San Juan Islands.

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In both cases, the behavior does not appear to be for the purpose of feeding, Giles said. The orcas do not eat the dead animals. For instance, in the case of the porpoises, the killer whales played with them — bandying them about, sometimes surfing with them, other times carrying them on the orcas’ pectoral fins — until the porpoises drowned, at which point they were abandoned, she said.

“Fads” are not unique to orcas. Other animals, including primates and other cetaceans, have also been observed to adopt new behaviors, which then spread through a social group.

Susan Perry, a biological anthropologist at UCLA, has studied a population of capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica, where she has observed and demonstrated the cultural transmission of novel behaviors, including “eye poking” — in which one monkey slips its finger “knuckle deep” between the eyelid and the bottom of another monkey’s eyeball.

But the idea that the whales’ behavior is a response to trauma has gripped many — including the researchers who most closely study this population and first documented the behavior.

In a paper published last year , a team of Portuguese and Spanish researchers suggested the behavior seen in the Strait of Gibraltar orcas could have been triggered by a variety of causes, including trauma.

Alfredo López Fernandez, a killer whale researcher with GT Orca Atlántica, a Portuguese conservation research organization, said it is impossible to know how it started, or which whale or whales may have initially instigated the attacks.

He listed several adult females as the possible original perpetrators — which then taught or showed others how to participate.

There is White Gladis, which seems to be present in most of the attacks; Gladis Negra, which was observed to have injuries in 2020, possibly from a ship strike; and Gray Gladis, which in 2018 witnessed another whale get trapped in fishing gear.

Gladis is a name given to all orcas in the pod that interact with boats; it comes from Orca gladiator, an early nickname given to these boat-jouncing killer whales.

“All of this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are the origin of this behavior,” he said.

For Cal Currier’s part, he thinks the whales are entertaining themselves.

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On June 8, as the 17-year-old Palo Alto High School senior sailed through the strait with his father, James, 55, and brother, West, 19, their 30-foot sailboat was accosted and spun in circles.

The rudder was battered, and the trio had to be towed to shore in Spain. “They were playing,” Currier said.

He said that when they pulled in, they were told roughly 30 other boats were ahead of them in line for repairs; half were damaged by the killer whales. He said there were no bite marks on the rudder, and he did not sense aggression from the whales.

For Giles, the Washington killer whale researcher, her biggest concern is that the longer the whales continue this behavior, the more likely it is they’ll get injured or suffer retribution at the hands of humans.

She’s hoping authorities in the region will consider non-traumatic hazing techniques — such as instructing boats to play or make sounds that irritate the whales — to get them to stop. She said studies have shown orcas don’t like the calls of pilot whales and will generally swim away if they hear them. Loud banging sounds, such as hitting a large, metal oikomi pipe underwater, can also be effective.

“Anything that might irritate them, make them lose their interest or swim away,” Giles said.

Currier said he wasn’t too rattled by the whole experience — unlike his dad and brother, who were “scared for their lives.”

The trio have since sold the boat and intend to spend the rest of the vacation on dry land.

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Why Has a Group of Orcas Suddenly Started Attacking Boats?

Killer whales in a group near Spain and Portugal may be teaching one another to mess with small boats. They sank their third vessel earlier this month

By Stephanie Pappas

A group of three orcas, also known as killer whales, are seen swimming in the Strait of Gibraltar. Individuals in the critically endangered subpopulation have been attacking boats off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula.

Malcolm Schuyl/Alamy Stock Photo

A trio of orcas attacked a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar earlier this month, damaging it so badly that it sank soon afterward.

The May 4 incident was the third time killer whales ( Orcinus orca ) have sunk a vessel off the coasts of Portugal and Spain in the past three years. The subpopulation of orcas in this region began harassing boats, most often by biting at their rudder, in 2020. Almost 20 percent of these attacks caused enough damage to disable the vessels, says Alfredo López, an orca researcher at the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), which monitors the Iberian killer whale population. “It is a rare behavior that has only been detected in this part of the world,” he says.

Researchers aren’t sure why the orcas are going after the watercraft. There are two hypotheses, according to López. One is that the killer whales have invented a new fad, something that subpopulations of these members of the dolphin family are known to do. Much as in humans, orca fads are often spearheaded by juveniles, López says. Alternatively, the attacks may be a response to a bad past experience involving a boat.

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The first known incident occurred in May 2020 in the Strait of Gibraltar, an area with heavy boat traffic. Since then GTOA has recorded 505 cases of orcas reacting to boats. Sometimes they simply approached the vessels, and only a fraction of cases involved physical contact, López says. In a study published in June 2022 in Marine Mammal Science , he and his colleagues cataloged 49 instances of orca-boat contact in 2020 alone. The vast majority of the attacks were on sailboats or catamarans, with a handful involving fishing boats and motorboats. The average length of the vessels was 12 meters (39 feet). For comparison, a full-grown orca can be 9.2 meters (30 feet) long.

The researchers found that the orcas preferentially attack the boats’ rudder, sometimes scraping the hull with their teeth. Such attacks often snap the rudder, leaving the boat unable to navigate. In three cases, the animals damaged a boat so badly that it sank: In July 2022 they sank a sailboat with five people onboard. In November 2022 they caused a sailboat carrying four to go down. And finally, in this month’s attack, the Swiss sailing yacht Champagne had to be abandoned, and the vessel sank while it was towed to shore. In all cases, the people onboard were rescued safely.

In 2020 researchers observed nine different individual killer whales attacking boats; it’s unclear if others have since joined in. The attacks tended to come from two separate groups: a trio of juveniles occasionally joined by a fourth and a mixed-aged group consisting of an adult female named White Gladis, two of her young offspring and two of her sisters. Because White Gladis was the only adult involved in the initial incidents, the researchers speculate that she may have become entangled in a fishing line at some point, giving her a bad association with boats. Other adult orcas in the region have injuries consistent with boat collisions or entanglement, López says. “All this has to make us reflect on the fact that human activities, even in an indirect way, are at the origin of this behavior,” he says.

The safe rescue of everyone involved, however, suggests to Deborah Giles that these orcas don’t have malevolent motivations against humans. Giles, science and research director of the Washington State–based nonprofit conservation organization Wild Orca, points out that humans relentlessly harassed killer whales off the coasts of Washington and Oregon in the 1960s and 1970s, capturing young orcas and taking them away for display at marine parks. “These are animals that, every single one of them, had been captured at one point or another—most whales multiple times. And these are whales that saw their babies being taken away from them and put on trucks and driven away, never to be seen again,” Giles says. “And yet these whales never attacked boats, never attacked humans.”

Though it’s possible that the orcas around the Iberian Peninsula could be reacting to a bad experience with a boat, Giles says, it’s pure speculation to attribute that motivation to the animals. The behavior does seem to be learned, she says, but could simply be a fad without much rhyme or reason—to the human mind, anyway. Famously, some members of the Southern Resident orcas that cruise Washington’s Puget Sound each summer and fall spent the summer of 1987 wearing dead salmon on their head. There was no apparent reason for salmon hats to come in vogue in orca circles, but the behavior spread and persisted for a few months before disappearing again. “We’re not going to know what’s happening with this population,” Giles says, referring to the Iberian orcas.

The Iberian orca attacks typically last less than 30 minutes, but they can sometimes go on for up to two hours, according to the 2022 study. In the case of the Champagne, two juvenile killer whales went after the rudder while an adult repeatedly rammed the boat, crew members told the German magazine Yacht . The attack lasted 90 minutes.

The Iberian orca subpopulation is considered critically endangered, with only 39 animals the last time a full census was conducted in 2011. A 2014 study found that this subpopulation follows the migration of their key prey , Atlantic bluefin tuna—a route that puts them in close contact with human fishing, military activities and recreational boating. Maritime authorities recommend that boaters in the area slow down and try to stay away from orcas, López says, but there is no guaranteed way to avoid the animals. He and his colleagues fear the boat attacks will come back and bite the orcas, either because boaters will lash out or because the attacks are dangerous to the animals themselves. “They run a great risk of getting hurt,” López says.

Orcas’ latest boat attack claims yacht sailing in Strait of Gibraltar

A yacht sank after it was attacked by a pod of orcas for 45 minutes, a sailing company has said, marking the latest assault on a boat by the sea mammals this year.

Polish tour operator Morskie Mile — which means "sea miles" — said in a Facebook post that its yacht Grazie Mamma II was attacked while sailing the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco on Oct. 31.

The whales attacked the boat's rudder, the company said, causing major damage and a leak. Despite an attempt by the captain to take the boat to the nearest port, and a rescue attempt that involved the Moroccan Navy, the yacht sank near the entrance to the port of Tanger Med, about an hour's drive east of the city of Tangiers.

The boat's crew were unharmed, the company said in a statement that NBC News translated from Polish. The same statement was posted to the company's website by company owner Lech Lewandowski.

"For us, this yacht was everything that was great about sea sailing," he said.

"Long-term friendships were formed onboard. We sailed this yacht through the most beautiful places in Europe and the Atlantic archipelagos, trained numerous yacht helmsmen, discovered the beautiful and unknown, tasted Mediterranean specialties and sailed, sailed, sailed," Lewandowski continued.

The company said it was planning to honor forthcoming cruise bookings by using "friends' yachts." Future trips will take in the Baltic Sea, Norway, Italy and the Canary Islands, according to the company's website. A single leg of a voyage can cost 1,800 Polish zloty ($432).

In May, it emerged that orcas were responsible for attacking and sinking three boats in southern Europe. Encounters between orcas and humans have been increasing since 2020, researchers say , but no human deaths have been reported.

The increased orca-boat activity has led to a slew of internet memes this year, with some claiming they were joining the "orca wars" on the side of the orcas.

In September, a Russian boat on a round-the-world trip was sunk after a prolonged attack by tiny cookiecutter sharks.

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

Killer whales attack boats off Europe. Could same thing happen in Florida?

It's "Jaws" with a twist. Or is it?

A pod of orcas has gained worldwide attention after sinking a boat in an attack that lasted 45 minutes, Live Science reported . 

The Oct. 31 incident is the fourth time in two years orcas have been blamed for sinking ships in southwestern Europe.

While orcas, also known as killer whales, are most commonly found in colder waters, they have been spotted in and around Florida. So could what happened across the Atlantic happen here?

What happened to the yacht attacked by orcas off Morocco?

According to a translated Facebook post made by Polish cruise company  Morskie Mile , owner of the sunken boat, a mid-size sailing yacht was attacked by a pod of orcas off the coast of Morocco in the Strait of Gibraltar Oct. 31.

The orcas repeatedly hit the yacht's rudder, causing major damage and causing the boat to take on water. All passengers were safely evacuated before the boat sank.

This wasn't first attack by orcas off the Iberian Peninsula

Incidents involving orcas off the Iberian coast jumped from 52 in 2020 to more than 200 in 2022, though no human injuries or deaths have been reported,  according to Orca research group GTOA .

Experts first documented juvenile Iberian killer whales  — a "unique subpopulation of killer whales that lives in the northeast Atlantic" — touching, pushing, and even turning vessels, including some fishing and inflatable boats, in 2020, GTOA said.

Experts think the rest of the population could be mimicking the behavior. 

Why are the killer whales attacking boats?

Andrew Trites, professor and director of Marine Mammal Research at the University of British Columbia,  told CBS News  there are two main theories about the attacks, but, for now, it remains to be an “unprecedented” mystery.

The first theory is that orcas are engaging in a type of whale "play" or "sport,”  Trites said .

The second theory is that orcas’ years of dealing with traumatic boating injuries have resulted in a "negative experience.”

Are there orcas in Florida waters?

Killer whales have been seen off Florida, including at least three times this year.

In July, a Florida fisherman captured a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience on video when he and some friends encountered a pod of orcas off the Florida Keys .

The orcas were about 18 to 20 miles offshore in about 1,700 feet of water and had just killed something when a group of fishermen spotted them.

In January, an  orca beached itself and died off Flagler County . The whale had "signs of various illnesses," officials from the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries division  said at the time.

The whale was an adult female at least 21 feet long and weighed approximately 5,000 pounds.

It was the first killer whale stranding recorded in the southeastern United States, according to Erin Fougeres,  Marine Mammal Stranding Program  administrator for NOAA's Southeast region.

In September, a group of fishermen spotted a pod of orcas about 100 miles east of Fort Pierce .

Florida, of course, is best known for its orcas kept in captivity which have brought delight, horror and backlash from activists for decades. Attractions are phasing out their killer whales in response to public opinion.

Killer whales normally found in colder waters

Orcas are most commonly found in colder waters, according to the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration .

However, they have been spotted all over the world, even in tropical and subtropical waters — including the Gulf of Mexico and off Florida's eastern coast.

It's not uncommon to see orcas swimming around the Bahamas as they move from one place to another, according to Jim Moir, chair of the  Marine Resources Council .

In rare instances, the whales will follow migrating fish down into warmer areas such as Florida, Hawaii, Australia, the Galapagos Islands, the Bahamas, and the Gulf of Mexico.

There is a small Western North Atlantic stock of killer whales, as well as a stock in the Gulf of Mexico with around 267 individuals, Fougeres said.

Do orcas attack humans?

While orcas may  deserve their fearsome reputation  when it comes to other marine animals, they almost never attack humans in the wild , according to LiveScience .

"I don’t think a killer whale would ever hunt a human," said Erich Hoyt , a researcher at Whale and Dolphin Conservation .

"They are fussy eaters, really conservative in terms of whatever they learned from their mothers and from their pod about what constitutes food."

A killer whale did bite a surfer off California in 1972, but the orca quickly let go, according to the  Lodi News-Sentinel . After interviewing the surfer, Hoyt said the whale may have mistaken the surfer as a seal.

Are killer whales endangered?

It is estimated that there are around 50,000 killer whales globall y, according to NOAA Fisheries  

All killer whale populations are protected under the  Marine Mammal Protection Act . Only two populations receive additional special protections under federal law:

• Southern Resident Distinct Population Segment, listed as endangered under the  Endangered Species Act , which range from central California to southeast Alaska.
• AT1 Transient stock, designated as  depleted  under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and found in the eastern North Pacific. Their numbers have dropped from 22 to 7 whales since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Quick facts about orcas

• Weight : up to 11 tons
• Length : Up to 32 feet
• Lifespan : 30 to 90 years
• Threats : Chemical contaminants; Disturbance from vessel traffic and noise; entanglement in fishing gear; food limitations; oil spills.
• What they eat: Diet is primarily determined by the culture — learned hunting tactics — of each type. They are considered an apex predator.

How to report a stranded or injured marine animal

If you see a sick, injured, stranded, or dead marine mammal or sea turtle, contact the FWC at 888-404-FWCC (888-404-3922) or the Florida Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network at 888-404-FWCC (888-404-3922).

On an iPhone, you can use the   Dolphin and Whale 911 app  to report a stranded marine mammal. 

NOAA recommends staying at least 150 feet away from a stranded marine mammal or sea turtle.

A pod of orcas has sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar

For 45 minutes, the crew of the Grazie Mamma felt like they were under attack from below. A pod of orcas had zeroed in on the yacht's rudder as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and rammed it repeatedly, "causing major damage and leakage," according to the company that operated the boat.

Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us," read a statement posted to Facebook by Morskie Mile , the Warsaw-based touring company that operated the boat. "Very good memories will be transferred to Grazie Mamma II. Love of the sea always wins and friendships remain with us."

The company said it is working to ensure its upcoming trips to the Canary Islands go on without a hitch.

Last week's incident was the latest in a string of recent "attacks" by orcas in the waters separating southern Europe and northern Africa — encounters that have left researchers scratching their heads.

Since 2020, there have been about 500 encounters between orcas and boats, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR earlier this year. At least three boats have sunk, though there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.

Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.

One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," said Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research in Spain, in an interview with NPR last year. When they encounter a sailboat without its engine on, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder," de Stephanis said.

Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic , previous encounters with fishing boats.

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute previously told NPR. Shields said she does not think "we can completely rule it out," even if she was not entirely convinced herself.

Deborah Giles, the science and research director at conservation group Wild Orca, says pods in other areas, such as near Washington state, have been targeted by humans, but haven't shown a pattern of ramming boats.

Which underscores why researchers say it's difficult to draw any conclusions from the interactions documented to date. In an open letter published this summer, 30 scientists cautioned against "projecting narratives onto these animals," writing that "In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume they understand the animals' motivations."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Watch CBS News

Killer whales sink yacht after 45-minute attack, Polish tour company says

By Emily Mae Czachor

November 6, 2023 / 9:58 AM EST / CBS News

A group of orcas managed to sink a yacht off the coast of Morocco last week, after its 45-minute attack on the vessel caused irreparable damage, a Polish tour company said.

The incident happened Tuesday, Oct. 31, as a crew with the boat touring group sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar. The narrow waterway bridges the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, which separates the southern tip of Europe from northern Africa. 

A pod of orcas, colloquially called killer whales, approached the yacht and "hit the steering fin for 45 minutes, causing major damage and leakage," the tour agency Morskie Mile, which is based in Warsaw and operated the yacht, wrote on  Facebook in a translated post.

Although its captain and crew were assisted by a search-and-rescue team as well as the Moroccan Navy, the yacht could not be salvaged. It sank near the entrance to the port of Tanger-Med, a major complex of ports some 30 miles northeast of Tangier along the Strait of Gibraltar. None of the crew members were harmed, said the Polish tour agency, adding that those on board the sunken yacht were already safe and in Spain by the time their Facebook post went live. 

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us. Longtime friendships formed on board," wrote Morskie Mile. The company said it was involved in other upcoming cruises in the Canary Islands and would work to make sure those boat trips went ahead as planned.

Last week's incident in the Strait of Gibraltar was not the first of its kind. Reported attacks by killer whales that seem to be trying deliberately to capsize boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal have more than tripled over the last two years, according to data  released in the spring by the research group GTOA, which studies orcas around Gibraltar.

"Nobody knows why this is happening," Andrew W. Trites, professor and director of Marine Mammal Research at the University of British Columbia, told CBS News in May. "My idea, or what anyone would give you, is informed speculation. It is a total mystery, unprecedented." 

GTOA recorded 52 maritime interactions with orcas between the Strait of Gibraltar and Galicia, a coastal province in northwestern Spain, between July and November 2020. The incidents picked up in the years that followed, with 197 interactions recorded in 2021 and 207 recorded in 2022, GTOA said, noting that the interactions mainly affected sailboats. 

Then, in June of this year, one of two sailing teams involved in an international race around the world reported a frightening confrontation involving multiple orcas as they traveled through the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Gibraltar. The teams, which were competing in The Ocean Race, said the orcas did not damage their boats or harm crews, but recalled the sea creatures pushing up against and, in one instance, ramming into one of the boats. The orcas also nudged and bit the rudders, one crew member said.

Caitlin O'Kane and Kerry Breen contributed to this report.

Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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Orcas Sink Another Boat in the Strait of Gibraltar

The crew is safe, but the marine mammals did so much damage to the Polish sailing yacht that it couldn’t make it back to port

Daily Correspondent

The orcas are at it again : A pod of the black-and-white marine mammals sank a sailing yacht off the coast of Morocco in the Strait of Gibraltar last week. This marks the fourth vessel orcas have sunk in the region within the last two years, according to Live Science ’s Harry Baker.

On the afternoon of October 31, orcas repeatedly rammed into the Grazie Mamma , a vessel owned by the Polish cruise company Morskie Mile, according to a translated Facebook post from the company. The animals hit the rudder for 45 minutes, causing damage to the boat that filled it with water.

In response, the captain, crew members, search and rescue personnel, port tugboats and the Moroccan Navy worked together to try to bring the damaged yacht safely into port at Tanger-Med. But despite their efforts, the ship sank near the port’s entrance. Fortunately, the crew is “safe, unharmed and sound,” per the Facebook post.

The Grazie Mamma ’s demise is just one of several recent, headline-grabbing incidents involving orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow waterway that connects the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The strait is flanked by Spain to the north and Morocco to the south.

Researchers and sailors alike are baffled by the disruptive behavior of the orcas that inhabit the strait, which are categorized as a distinct—and critically endangered—subpopulation . For the last three years, several members of this group have been colliding with vessels and, in some instances, causing so much damage the boats sink.

Since 2020, scientists have recorded more than 500 interactions between orcas and ships off the Iberian peninsula,  Live Science ’s Sascha Pare reported in May. That represents a small fraction of the total vessels that pass through the strait, but the unusual incidents have garnered worldwide attention nonetheless. The so-called killer whales have become social media stars, with memes and even merchandise suggesting they’re coordinating an “ orca uprising .”

Scientists don’t know for sure why the orcas are targeting vessels, but they have urged onlookers to avoid assigning human attributes to the creatures, and especially to refrain from framing their actions as retaliation, reports the Washington Post ’s Dino Grandoni.

“We believe this narrative inappropriately projects human motivations onto these whales, and we are concerned that perpetuating it will lead to punitive responses by mariners or managers,” a group of 35 scientists wrote in an open letter this August.

Orcas are highly social animals, and in the past, they have periodically adopted short-lived fads, such as wearing dead salmon on their heads like hats. While the vessel strikes are persisting longer than a typical fad, they might disappear just as quickly as they began, the scientists wrote. But overall, it appears unlikely the creatures are behaving maliciously or seeking revenge on humans.

“I just don’t really see it as an agonistic activity,” said Deborah Giles , a marine biologist at the University of Washington and director of the conservation research organization Wild Orca, to the Los Angeles Times ’ Susanne Rust earlier this year.

So far, the behavior has mostly been isolated to the group inhabiting the waters off the Iberian peninsula—though, this summer, one incident did occur more than 2,000 miles away near Scotland.

One theory scientists have for the behavior is that orcas are simply having fun—they see boat rudders, then use their noses to push them until they snap.

“They’re pushing, pushing, pushing—boom! It’s a game,”  Renaud de Stephanis , a scientist who leads the marine research group Conservation, Information and Research on Cetaceans (CIRCE), told  BBC Future ’s Sophie Hardach in June. “Imagine a kid of 6, 7 years, with a weight of three tonnes. That’s it, nothing less, nothing more. If they wanted to wreck the boat, they would break it in ten minutes’ time.”

Another theory is that a female orca within the group named White Gladis may be acting out because of a past traumatic run-in with a vessel. Perhaps, then, the behavior is catching on among juveniles, because they “look up to these very important females in the pod,” in orcas’ matriarchal society , as  Alfredo López Fernandez , a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and a member of the Atlantic Orca Working Group, said to CNN ’s Jacopo Prisco in June.

Still, some scientists point out that we, as humans, cannot presume to know the orcas’ motivation. And any attempts to guess are just that: guesswork.

“Nobody knows why this is happening,” Andrew W. Trites , director of marine mammal research at the University of British Columbia in Canada, told CBS News earlier this year. “My idea, or what anyone would give you, is informed speculation. It is a total mystery, unprecedented.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.

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Orcas Sink Fourth Boat Off Iberia, Unnerving Sailors

Orcas caused enough damage to sink a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar last week. A small pod has been slamming boats in recent years, worrying skippers charting routes closer to shore.

By Isabella Kwai

The yacht Grazie Mamma II carried its crew along the coastlines and archipelagos of the Mediterranean. Its last adventure was off the coast of Morocco last week, when it encountered a pod of orcas.

The marine animals slammed the yacht’s rudder for 45 minutes, causing major damage and a leak, according to Morskie Mile , the boat’s Polish operators. The crew escaped, and rescuers and the Moroccan Navy tried to tow the yacht to safety, but it sank near the port of Tanger Med, the operator said on its website.

The account of the sinking is adding to the worries of many sailors along the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where marine biologists are studying a puzzling phenomenon: Orcas are jostling and ramming boats in interactions that have disrupted dozens of voyages and caused at least four boats in the past two years to sink.

The largest of the dolphin family, orcas are playful apex predators that hunt sharks, whales and other prey but are generally amiable to humans in the wild . The orcas hunting in the Strait of Gibraltar are considered to be endangered , and researchers have noticed an upsurge of unusual behavior since 2020: A small group of the marine animals have been battering boats in the busy routes around Portugal, Spain and Morocco.

While most interactions occur in the waters of southwestern Europe and North Africa, an orca also reportedly rammed a yacht some 2,000 miles north off the coast of Scotland, according to The Guardian.

“Orcas are complex, intelligent, highly social,” Erich Hoyt, a research fellow at Whale and Dolphin Conservation and author of “Orca: The Whale Called Killer,” said. “We’re still at the early stages of trying to understand this behavior.”

Researchers have pushed back at the idea that orcas are attacking vessels. Instead, they theorize that the rudders of boats have become a plaything for curious young orcas and that the behavior has become a learned fad spreading through the population. Another hypothesis, according to biologists who published a study on the population last June, is that the ramming is an “adverse behavior” because of a bad experience between an orca and a boat — though researchers tend to favor the first.

It is unclear what will stop the ramming, whether it’s playful or otherwise, a point that has left anxious skippers traveling these parts sharing advice in Facebook groups dedicated to tracking such interactions .

“It’s been an interesting summer hiding in shallow waters,” said Greg Blackburn, a skipper based in Gibraltar. Orcas slammed into a boat he was commanding in May and chewed at the rudder, he said, though the vessel was able to return to shore.

The encounter left an impression: On a recent trip to Barcelona, Mr. Blackburn had to pass through a patch where orcas had been sighted the week before. “I genuinely felt sick for about three hours,” he said, “just watching the horizon constantly for a fin to pop up.”

Conservationists, maritime rescue groups and yacht clubs are partnering to navigate the challenge of preserving an endangered population and helping sailors avoid calamity. The Cruising Association, a club supporting sailors, has recommended safety protocols for orca encounters, such as disconnecting the boat’s autopilot and staying quiet. Skippers have offered one another anecdotal advice to deter attacks, including throwing sand into the water and banging loudly on the boat.

Before leaving shore, seagoers can also consult digital platforms that now track reported orca sightings and interactions in the region. This can help them avoid the animals, or chart a route closer to shore, said Bruno Díaz López, a biologist and the director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute based in Galicia, Spain.

“We suggested the boats stay in shallow waters,” he said, adding that they had noticed more boats changing their journeys. “Maybe the trip takes longer, yes. But it is worth it.”

Mr. Blackburn, the skipper, said he had heard of people resorting to throwing firecrackers into the sea to try to scare the animals away, adding that the boats served as people’s homes on the ocean. “At the end of the day, if you’re protecting your home what are you going to do?”

But the ocean is the orcas’ home, and conservationists say scaring the animals is not a solution.

“It is not about winning a battle, because this is not a war,” Mr. López said. “We need to be respectful.”

Isabella Kwai is a breaking news reporter in the London bureau. She joined The Times in 2017 as part of the Australia bureau. More about Isabella Kwai

A pod of orcas have sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar

A pair of orcas swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2018.

Brian Gisborne / AP

For 45 minutes, the crew of the Grazie Mamma II felt like they were under attack from below. A pod of orcas had zeroed in on the yacht’s steering fin as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and rammed it repeatedly, “causing major damage and leakage,” according to the company that operated the boat.

Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us," read a statement posted to Facebook by Morskie Mile , the Warsaw-based touring company that operated the boat. "Very good memories will be transferred to Grazie Mamma II. Love of the sea always wins and friendships remain with us."

The company said it is working to ensure its upcoming trips to the Canary Islands go on without a hitch.

Last week's incident was the latest in a string of recent "attacks" by orcas in the waters separating southern Europe and northern Africa — encounters that have left researchers scratching their heads.

Since 2020, there have been about 500 encounters between orcas and boats, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR earlier this year. At least three boats have sunk, though there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.

Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.

One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," said Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research in Spain, in an interview with NPR last year. When they encounter a sailboat without its engine on, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder," de Stephanis said.

Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic , previous encounters with fishing boats.

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute previously told NPR. Shields said she does not think "we can completely rule it out," even if she was not entirely convinced herself.

Deborah Giles, the science and research director at conservation group Wild Orca, says pods in other areas, such as near Washington state, have been targeted by humans, but haven't shown a pattern of ramming boats.

Which underscores why researchers say it's difficult to draw any conclusions from the interactions documented to date. In an open letter published this summer, 30 scientists cautioned against "projecting narratives onto these animals," writing that "In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume they understand the animals' motivations."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Footage shows an orca that appears to carry away a severed rudder after a pod of killer whales attacked a yacht off the coast of Spain

• Footage shows an orca swimming off with a destroyed rudder after killer whales attacked a catamaran.
• The vessel's captain told Newsweek the orcas focussed on the yacht's rudders.
• The boat was sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar in April, an area where orcas have been targeting boats.

A pod of orcas targeted a yacht sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar, destroying both rudders on the vessel. Recently-posted footage appears to show one of the killer whales swimming off with one of the severed rudders.

The footage, shared on Instagram by Catamaran Guru earlier this week, shows the orca swimming up to the boat and carrying off one of the rudders. 

The yacht's captain, Dan Kriz, was sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar in April when the eight orcas came in contact with his boat.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Catamaran Guru (@catamaranguru)

"We were about to cross shipping lines and turning south to the Canary Islands when we felt like we got bad with a wave," Kriz told Newsweek in a recent interview . 

When the orcas rammed the boat a second time, the sailor realized what was happening, he said.

"My first reaction was, 'Please! Not again,'" Kriz told Newsweek.

The captain told the news outlet he had previously been ambushed by orcas in 2020 when sailing through the same area. 

Related stories

Last April, Kriz was delivering a catamaran for the Florida-based company Catamaran Guru when the orcas targeted the rudders specifically: 

"It didn't take them that long to destroy both rudders," he said. "Looks like they knew exactly what they were doing. They didn't touch anything else," he told the news outlet.

"Bottom line is, we are in their territory"

Orcas have been increasingly targeting ships in the region, and experts have been trying to explain the reason behind it .

One popular theory suggests that a female orca named White Gladis may have experienced a traumatic event that triggered a change in her behavior to attack vessels. Other orcas in the area could be imitating her actions, Insider previously reported .

Indeed, Kriz believes a female orca led the attack on his boat.

"Suddenly, one big adult orca started chasing us. In a couple of minutes, she was under the boat, and that was when we realized there was still a little piece of fiberglass left, and she wanted to finish the job. After that, we didn't see them anymore," he told Newsweek.

While orca interactions with boats are usually harmless, they sometimes ram vessels and even sink them — which can be "quite terrifying" for those onboard. Insider's Joshua Zitser recently reported on a similar case , where killer whales also ripped off both rudders of a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar. 

In that case, the sailor said he felt the orcas were being "almost playful" rather than particularly aggressive. 

While it remains unclear what is behind this phenomenon, one expert said he believed that the orca attacks in the region would only escalate, Insider recently reported .  

Even so, many have warned that, ultimately, sailors are in the orcas' habitat, so they should be left alone and not demonized. 

Kriz echoed this sentiment: "I'm strongly against harming the orcas," he said. "Bottom line is, we are in their territory."

• Main content

Orcas threw a yacht around 'like a rag doll' and ripped off both rudders, the latest example of a killer-whale attack

• A pod of orcas attacked a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar, ripping off both of its rudders.
• The sailor said it felt as though the orcas were throwing the yacht around "like a rag doll."
• There have been 20 incidents of orca attacks in the Strait of Gibraltar in the past month alone.

A British sailor had the rudders of his yacht ripped off by orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar, the latest of several killer-whale incidents in the area in recent weeks.

Iain Hamilton is now marooned in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on Spain's south coast, after a pod of five orcas attacked his yacht, he told BBC Radio 4's "Today" program on Monday.

He said he was sailing 20 miles west off the coast when he noticed a fin near his boat, followed by a series of increasingly jerky bumps.

"There was a very large whale pushing along the back of the boat, trying to bite the rudder," he told BBC Radio 4, adding that the big orca, along with four smaller killer whales, repeatedly bumped against the yacht.

"Then one of them managed to take off the rudder," he said.

Hamilton said it was "quite concerning" to be left with only one rudder, but the situation turned from bad to worse when the second rudder was torn off.

"We had no mechanism for steering the boat," he said. Hamilton added that the orcas "pushed us around like a rag doll."

The sailor told Radio 4 that he felt as though the orcas were being "almost playful" rather than aggressive, adding that they would have had the strength to destroy his yacht quickly if they wished to.

He also said the killer whales moved in a way that seemed "choreographed, almost, like synchronized swimming," according to the radio broadcast.

"They seemed to be playing with the rudders, and just inadvertently rendering the boat very vulnerable and in a fairly dangerous situation," Hamilton said in the interview.

It is unclear how the attack ended, or how the yacht got back to shore.

Hamilton went on to tell Radio 4 that the scale of orca attacks on the Strait of Gibraltar is far bigger than one might expect, referring to the Atlantic Orca Working Group's findings that there have been 20 incidents involving killer whales in the region in the past month alone.

Insider's Isobel Van Hagen previously reported on an incident last month in which a pod of orcas rammed a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar.

In a post on her blog,  April Boyes, who was aboard the yacht, wrote a first-hand account of the event. She described the boat filling with water as the orcas "completely destroyed" the rudder.

Researchers are trying to work out why killer whales are increasingly targeting boats near Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, with one theory pointing to a single, female orca who may have been traumatized by a previous interaction.

Orcas sink another boat in Strait of Gibraltar off Morocco

For years, the region’s killer whales have been bumping, biting and, in some cases, sinking boats. but many scientists caution not to ascribe motive to the animals..

The orcas have done it again.

On Oct. 31, a pod of killer whales swarmed a Polish yacht sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar. For 45 minutes, the orcas hit the vessel’s rudder and damaged the boat, according to the company that operated it. Despite rescue efforts, the yacht never made it back to shore, sinking near the entrance of the Moroccan port of Tanger Med.

“The crew is safe, unharmed and sound,” the Polish tour company Morskie Mile wrote in a Facebook post describing the demise of its boat.

Since 2020, orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar and along the Iberian Peninsula have been bumping and biting boats — oftentimes, yachts — in dozens of incidents that have frightened mariners and confounded scientists.

A recent spate of killer whales sinking boats delighted online observers who anthropomorphize the marine mammals and hail them as working-class heroes.

Are the orcas really out to get us? What to know about recent attacks.

Fishing vessels and motorboats have all had their run-ins with orcas in the region, though sailboats appear to be the most popular target, according to a 2022 study . The tour agency Morskie Mile did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

No one is quite sure what is prompting the orcas to go after vessels — whether the whales are simply being playful, or had a bad run-in with a boat in the past, prompting the aggressive behavior.

Some scientists say the incidents should not be called “attacks” at all, since the whale’s motives are unknown. Perpetuating the idea that whales are out for revenge, they fear, may lead to retaliation by boaters.

“We urge the media and public to avoid projecting narratives onto these animals,” a group of more than 30 scientists wrote in an open letter this summer. “In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume they understand the animals’ motivations.”

What we do know is that orcas are highly intelligent marine mammals that appear to learn from one another. Usually, that learned behavior is a hunting strategy, such as corralling and eating massive blue whales .

Other times, it is something stranger, such as when orcas near Seattle were observed “wearing” dead salmon as hats. Orcas, it turns out, can be victims of cultural fads, too.

One other thing is clear: Killer whales normally don’t hurt people. And humans are a bigger threat to them than they are to us.

Getting entangled in fishing gear or struck by speeding boats is a threat for all whales. With perhaps fewer than 40 individuals left , the orca population off the coasts of Spain, Portugal and Morocco is considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

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A pod of orcas has sunk a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar

Ayana Archie

A pair of orcas swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2018. Brian Gisborne/AP hide caption

A pair of orcas swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island in 2018.

For 45 minutes, the crew of the Grazie Mamma felt like they were under attack from below. A pod of orcas had zeroed in on the yacht's rudder as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and rammed it repeatedly, "causing major damage and leakage," according to the company that operated the boat.

Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.

"This yacht was the most wonderful thing in maritime sailing for all of us," read a statement posted to Facebook by Morskie Mile , the Warsaw-based touring company that operated the boat. "Very good memories will be transferred to Grazie Mamma II. Love of the sea always wins and friendships remain with us."

The company said it is working to ensure its upcoming trips to the Canary Islands go on without a hitch.

Last week's incident was the latest in a string of recent "attacks" by orcas in the waters separating southern Europe and northern Africa — encounters that have left researchers scratching their heads.

Killer whales are 'attacking' sailboats near Europe's coast. Scientists don't know why

Since 2020, there have been about 500 encounters between orcas and boats, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR earlier this year. At least three boats have sunk, though there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.

Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.

One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.

"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," said Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research in Spain, in an interview with NPR last year. When they encounter a sailboat without its engine on, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder," de Stephanis said.

Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic , previous encounters with fishing boats.

Revenge of the killer whales? Recent boat attacks might be driven by trauma

"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute previously told NPR. Shields said she does not think "we can completely rule it out," even if she was not entirely convinced herself.

Deborah Giles, the science and research director at conservation group Wild Orca, says pods in other areas, such as near Washington state, have been targeted by humans, but haven't shown a pattern of ramming boats.

How wildlife officials saved a humpback whale found 'hogtied' to a 300-pound crab pot

Which underscores why researchers say it's difficult to draw any conclusions from the interactions documented to date. In an open letter published this summer, 30 scientists cautioned against "projecting narratives onto these animals," writing that "In the absence of further evidence, people should not assume they understand the animals' motivations."

Correction Nov. 7, 2023

An earlier version of this story misstated the yacht's name, Grazie Mamma, as Grazie Mamma II.

Trapped orca calf to be lifted out of B.C. lagoon by helicopter

Plans underway to keep calf fed with hopes of rescue in next 2 weeks.

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Plans are now underway to airlift a stranded killer whale calf out of a remote tidal lagoon off northern Vancouver Island in an effort to reunite the young orca with its extended family.

Fisheries Department and First Nations officials say the plans involve placing the two-year-old calf into a sling, lifting it out of the lagoon by helicopter and putting it in a holding net pen in the ocean while they wait for its family pod to be near for release. 

The plan was agreed to Wednesday during a meeting between members of the Ehattesaht First Nation council, Fisheries Department officials and marine technical experts.

"Everybody's worried about the whale up and down the coast,'' Ehattesaht Chief Simon John said after the meeting. "This whole process has been to reunite it with its pod.''

Paul Cottrell, a marine mammal co-ordinator with the Fisheries Department, says the rescue could occur within days, but more likely within the next two weeks.

"We look at this option as the most viable option to helping this whale,'' said Cottrell during the meeting at the First Nation office.

"Everybody is rooting for us. If we don't attempt it, the calf's life is a worry.''

Experts use AI in orca calf rescue attempt

Rescuers have been unable to coax the young whale out of the area since its pregnant mother was stranded at low tide in the lagoon and died on March 23.

Cottrel said time is of the essence and they'll be working quickly to put the plan in place and hopefully reunite the calf with its pod as it passes.

"With it being a tidal lagoon, an orphaned calf, a threatened species, I've never been involved in such a complex operation [that is] multivariable and really difficult,'' he said.

How they'll capture the calf is still being worked out. Officials say it will be placed in a sling and examined for its health before being put in a net pen similar to the ones used for fish farms along B.C.'s coast.

Whale will be fed, appears healthy

John says his people have deep cultural and spiritual connections to killer whales and the nation has been receiving calls of concern and support from around the world.

The orca calf has been named kwiisahi?is, or "Little Brave Hunter."

Earlier Wednesday, Cottrell said the young orca appears healthy and appears to be seeking prey, but said officials are awaiting results of a deeper analysis of its condition.

In the meantime, rescue officials are planning to try to feed the whale in an attempt to keep it healthy.

The rescue team will see if the calf will eat harbour seal remains placed around the lagoon, Cottrell said in a shoreline interview near the village of Zeballos, located more than 450 kilometres northwest of Victoria.

Killer whale calf stranded after mother dies

"We are looking at partially supplementing food for the animal going forward," said Cottrell.

"We've got lots of contingencies, depending on the animal's health. Just looking generally at the animal, it's very active. It doesn't look emaciated at all, no peanut head." 

Whale researchers use the term "peanut head" to describe the condition of underfed killer whales that lose their fat reserves, giving their head a peanut-shaped profile at the surface.

• Rescuers hope AI will help reunite orphaned orca calf with pod
• Orca calf rescue team considers changing tactics to save stranded B.C. whale: DFO

Efforts by the Fisheries Department, the Ehattesaht First Nation and others to get the calf to open water where it might reconnect with its pod members have included using a flotilla of boats setting a series of directional lines leading out of the lagoon and playing recorded whale calls from its family. 

Cottrell said officials were on the water Tuesday launching their feeding plan, which involved placing prey and using a waterproof drone to observe the young killer whale.

He said the drone video footage and photos will give marine mammal experts a better sense of the calf's health.

• Killer whale rescue team continues efforts to coax calf to ocean

"There's a lot of fish and there are birds and this animal was seen ingesting a bird recently. The animal's actively looking for prey. That's a great sign," said Cottrell.

The narrow, shallow channel the orca calf must pass through is a "dynamic, high-current" stretch of water, made more complex by limited high tide opportunities, Cottrell said. 

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Extinction risk to southern resident orcas accelerating as researchers raise alarm

by Lynda V. Mapes, The Seattle Times

Orca scientist Rob Williams always thought that conservation was a knowledge problem, that once science showed why a species was declining, people would fix it.

But new research concludes otherwise. Even in the case of one of the world's most charismatic species, the endangered southern resident killer whales that frequent Puget Sound are facing an accelerating risk of extinction, a new population analysis shows.

Despite all we know about them and why they are declining, this beloved species is hurtling toward extinction in plain sight—a peril scientists that published the paper memorably call "Bright Extinction," oblivion happening right before our eyes.

"There is no scenario in which the population is stable," said Williams, co-founder and chief scientist at the research nonprofit Oceans Initiative, and lead author on the paper published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment . "We have a generation or two where the population is not fluctuating around zero, it is fluctuating around a decline, then it accelerates to a faster rate of decline to extinction. That is without all the threats that are worsening. That was a real eye-opener. This is what the status quo will do."

In their model, the scientists found the southern residents declining in population until falling off a cliff in about 50 years—two killer whale generations—with only about 20 of their family members left within a century. Accounting for increasing threats would make the picture even worse.

This, Williams has had to face, is not a problem of adequate information. Instead, it's a matter of inadequate action. "I assumed if only we had the right data we would make the right decisions. But … not only do we know their biology and the threats they face," he said of the southern residents, "we have known these things for a very long time."

Climate change accentuates the extinction risk.

Warming water in the ocean disrupts ocean food webs that feed Chinook salmon—the primary prey of these orcas. And warming rivers hurt salmon survival and reproduction. Other threats, including ocean shipping traffic and other noise that disrupts orca hunting, and habitat destruction also are intensifying. Alteration of the environment is making it, at this rate, a place in which these co-evolved animals can no longer live.

Carl Safina, study author, ecologist and professor for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University in New York, sees in the doom of species extinction and looming loss of the southern residents a moral test for people.

"This is like a slow-motion collision; this is where we see the brick wall or the cliff, it's clear, the road is dry, it's 11 a.m. on a Sunday morning and we are going 8 miles an hour, and it's half a mile away, and then a quarter of a mile away and then we see it, and our smart sensors start beeping, and then we hit the accelerator and crash … why do we do that?"

Laws alone clearly are not enough: The Endangered Species Act, which turned 50 this year, calls for preservation of all species, no matter how humble. Yet here is one of the most intelligent animals in all the oceans, and its top predator, barely hanging on.

What's needed, Safina said, is a fundamental shift in how we all live here.

"Socially, we need an ethic that values the life on this planet, and that sees us as stewards."

So dire is the state of the southern residents—there are only 74 left—that it may be time to consider more drastic interventions, including preventive vaccination of at least some of the most biologically valuable members, the papers' authors state. A plan also needs to be mustered to be ready for a catastrophic event, such as a disease outbreak requiring a veterinary response across the U.S.-Canada border.

To give the southern residents a better chance at hunting success, the paper recommends some profound changes. Voluntary slowdowns already in place for ships have been found to cut noise levels by nearly half, according to the paper, which in turn results in increased hunting activity by killer whales.

Yet at the same time, multiple development projects are underway that will increase shipping traffic in the region, with completion of the second TransMountain tar sands oil pipeline terminating at the port of Vancouver, and a major expansion of the shipping terminal at Roberts Bank, the Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project, planned right at the Fraser River delta where orcas hunt.

It may be time to consider mandatory ocean noise budgets, caps or limits to allow killer whales to hunt scarce prey more effectively, the paper found.

A fresh look at fisheries management also is needed, according to the paper, to leave more fish in the sea for orcas. Moving fisheries in Alaska and British Columbia away from Chinook rearing grounds and migration routes in the sea to river mouth and estuarine locations would result in an immediate increase of Chinook critical to orcas of up to 25%, according to the paper.

Such a fishery could also help recover a Chinook population more like what orcas evolved with. By not harvesting immature fish in marine fisheries and allowing large females to pass through to spawning grounds, a size increase in the Chinook of up to 40% could occur over a 50-year period, according to the paper. That would provide more of the big Chinook orcas need and prefer. Freshwater habitat restoration could also continue to support wild Chinook abundance, instead of releasing more hatchery fish into the sea.

Hatchery fish compete with wild fish for food and spawning area. They also can weaken wild Chinook fitness by interbreeding or disease, noted study author Misty MacDuffee, salmon biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, a science nonprofit. She sees no pathway to orca recovery without fisheries reform and other changes to protect the orca's preferred food.

Another recent paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Ecosphere examined the relationship between the availability of prey and southern resident population ups and downs, to investigate how those relationships might have changed over time.

The work confirmed the essential link between the southern residents and their preferred food. "Prey still matters," said Eric Ward, an author on the paper and scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Northwest Fisheries Science Center. The paper also found that the northern resident orcas—whose population is increasing—could be affecting the southern residents' survival because of competition for the same food in shared waters.

Joe Gaydos, science director of the SeaDoc Society, a science research and education nonprofit and author on Nature paper, said the population analysis was a wake-up call as to just how at risk the southern residents are, without a change in course. What he hopes now is that decision-makers and the public will use that information to ramp up efforts to save a species that defines much of the wonder of the region.

"We have done a lot of great stuff for southern residents, and we need to do more," Gaydos said. "It's like when people go to the doctor in their 60s and say, "Should I eat better and stop smoking and drinking and exercise?" and the doctor says, "Yes, and you need to do all of them and you should have done it 20 years ago." That is what this paper is saying.

"We don't have time. We are talking about making some big changes in the next couple of generations of killer whales, or we are out of time."

That does not make this new work documenting the southern residents' accelerating extinction risk a give-up-hope paper, Gaydos said, but the opposite.

"Now is the time to show the money, and to make the effort." For one thing, we owe it to these animals, Gaydos noted.

The southern residents are in such deep trouble in part because of the capture era, during which a third of the whales were taken for sale to aquariums and other entertainment venues.

"We just need to do what we need to do, make it happen, it is on us, we got them here. We are the reason they are endangered," Gaydos said of the southern residents. "First with the captures, and later with the salmon, and the contaminants we made; those are not naturally occurring, and those are our boats out there."

Tim Regan, former executive director of the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission, who is not an author on the paper, says it's not over for the southern residents. "I personally am one that would say it is never too late," Regan said. Other species, from elephant seals to whooping cranes, have made remarkable comebacks, even from dire straits.

The southern residents are the top predator in these waters, and they are symbolic of the wonder of our natural surroundings, and a commitment to other forms of life that we cherish, Regan said.

"They are such a beautiful reminder of the nature of other species. If we don't care about them, I don't know what we would care about.

"You can't be blamed for failing, but you can be blamed for not trying."

Journal information: Nature Communications Earth & Environment , Ecosphere , Communications Earth & Environment

2024 The Seattle Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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‘We’re all cheering for her’: clock is ticking for Canada’s stranded orca orphan

The fate of the calf trapped in a British Columbia lagoon has gripped the public. Can Brave Little Hunter be reunited with her pod?

I n the early 1960s, Canada’s fisheries ministry installed a .50-calibre machine gun on an island in British Columbia. The weapon, typically used against armoured vehicles and low-flying aircraft, was mounted with the sole purpose of killing orcas. The high-powered gun was never used, but the message was clear: the whales, derisively called “blackfish”, were the enemy.

Now, six decades later and less than 100 miles away from where the gun was mounted, that same ministry has joined residents of a remote community in a frantic attempt to rescue a stranded orca calf.

For the last two weeks, the two-year-old calf has been trapped in a lagoon off the wind-battered west coast of Vancouver Island. Immense resources from Indigenous communities and Canada’s federal fisheries department have been marshalled to rescue the calf, which has been named kʷiisaḥiʔis (pronounced kwee-sahay-is), by local First Nations – a name that roughly translates to Brave Little Hunter. Amid the intensifying effort to free her, the outpouring of community support highlights a dramatic shift in public perceptions of the whales, from nuisances to be culled into beloved individuals worthy of a challenging and costly rescue.

The saga began on 23 March when residents of a coastal community along the north-western reaches of Vancouver Island spotted an orca trapped on shore . It is unclear why the orcas entered the lagoon, but the remains of a harbour seal nearby suggest to experts the stranding may have been the result of a hunt gone wrong. Locals worked, unsuccessfully, for hours to rescue the 14-year-old mother, named Spong, who was trapped in a trough-like depression on the shore. Kʷiisaḥiʔis watched helplessly as her mother struggled, and cries of distress were heard from hydrophones placed in the water. Glen McCall, one of the first on scene, called the immense emotional and physical toll of the failed rescue an “absolutely horrible” experience.

In the weeks since, every attempt to lure her out, including the use of vocalisations from family members, banging metal pipes and laying ropes with floats attached, have all failed. But the calf desperately needs nutrition. While she seems healthy, experts caution that her health could decline quickly in the coming days.

In the days since Spong’s death and the collective rescue effort, kʷiisaḥiʔis has carried the weight of a community’s hope. Every few minutes, her narrow black dorsal fin breaks the surface of the lagoon near the village of Zeballos. What follows is a misty exhalation from the orca – and a collective sigh of relief from the dozens of experts glued to her every movement, and from the global audience heavily invested in the whale’s plight.

“I was out there the day the mother got stranded, and it really left a mark on me,” said Chris Copeland, who uses the Facebook page of a local inn to chronicle the health of the calf. The updates, he’s learned, are read all over the globe. “With the way the world is these days, I think people just really want something to hope for. We’re all cheering for the little whale.”

On the bridge that separates the lagoon from the Little Espinosa Inlet, cedar boughs hung by the Ehattesaht First Nation highlight the high cultural stakes of the rescue: the origin stories of the Nuu-chah-nulth people tell of a killer whale coming on to land and transforming into a wolf, which itself transforms into a human.

Last week, the Ehattesaht First Nation, alongside the neighbouring Nuchatlaht First Nation, launched a canoe into the lagoon in an attempt to draw the calf closer with their drumming, a “powerful” moment on the water . “Every discussion and the resulting decisions are guided by one single principle: what is the safest for [the calf] and has the most probability for success,” the Ehattesaht chief and council said on Thursday.

Paul Cottrell, one of the country’s most experienced whale rescuers, told reporters he had never worked on a mission so “difficult and complex” as the attempt to free kʷiisaḥiʔis.

“Time is of the essence for this calf, we know that, and the planning is well along, but we do have a little bit more planning, equipment and logistics to work out,” he said.

On Thursday, Cottrell and Ehattesaht chief Simon John announced a plan to trap kʷiisaḥiʔis next week if the whale doesn’t escape the lagoon on her own. Using seine nets, the team would probably guide the calf into a sling, transporting her on a truck and then releasing her into an open-water pen – a series of carefully orchestrated movements that cannot take longer than a few hours.

But rescuing the calf from the lagoon is only the first step. Once safe, she needs to be reunited with family in order to survive in the open ocean. The rescue team plans to hold her in a pen used for salmon farming until relatives are close enough for a release.

While dozens of experts, including vets and drone operators, closely monitor the calf’s health, the team is also drawing on communities and whale-watching boats on Vancouver Island’s west coast in an attempt to locate the family. Whale research group Bay Cetology has opened to the public its online AI-assisted photo database of all the region’s whales in an attempt to track the calf’s relatives.

The ability to identify whales by distinct markings, a technique developed more than half a century ago, marks a pivotal moment for how the public began to understand orcas as distinct, highly intelligent and social mammals, says John Ford, a leading expert and scientist emeritus with the federal fisheries department.

“Over the years, they were feared by fishermen in the region just because they’re a large, dangerous-looking animal with big teeth,” he said. Hastily devised plans like the machine gun reflected both the frustration and fear the whales elicited. “But once you could start identifying every whale along the coast, they became individuals.”

Despite the overwhelming odds against the rescue attempt, Ford sees glimmers of hope. Brave Little Hunter is a Bigg’s killer whale, an ecotype of the species that has different social structures than the endangered southern resident whales . With movement of Bigg’s whales to different pods, the calf might be able to link up with members of its extended family if it can leave the inlet.

The tireless efforts to save the calf don’t come as a surprise to Ford, who has assisted on previous local rescue attempts. “For an individual to be orphaned and on its own, people feel empathy and want to help. It’s just human nature,” he said. “This is not just a generic whale stuck inland. We know who it is and where it should be. And many people would like to see it back with its family.”

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40 facts about elektrostal.

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Elektrostal is a vibrant city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia. With a rich history, stunning architecture, and a thriving community, Elektrostal is a city that has much to offer. Whether you are a history buff, nature enthusiast, or simply curious about different cultures, Elektrostal is sure to captivate you.

This article will provide you with 40 fascinating facts about Elektrostal, giving you a better understanding of why this city is worth exploring. From its origins as an industrial hub to its modern-day charm, we will delve into the various aspects that make Elektrostal a unique and must-visit destination.

So, join us as we uncover the hidden treasures of Elektrostal and discover what makes this city a true gem in the heart of Russia.

Key Takeaways:

• Elektrostal, known as the “Motor City of Russia,” is a vibrant and growing city with a rich industrial history, offering diverse cultural experiences and a strong commitment to environmental sustainability.
• With its convenient location near Moscow, Elektrostal provides a picturesque landscape, vibrant nightlife, and a range of recreational activities, making it an ideal destination for residents and visitors alike.

Known as the “Motor City of Russia.”

Elektrostal, a city located in the Moscow Oblast region of Russia, earned the nickname “Motor City” due to its significant involvement in the automotive industry.

Home to the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Elektrostal is renowned for its metallurgical plant, which has been producing high-quality steel and alloys since its establishment in 1916.

Boasts a rich industrial heritage.

Elektrostal has a long history of industrial development, contributing to the growth and progress of the region.

Founded in 1916.

The city of Elektrostal was founded in 1916 as a result of the construction of the Elektrostal Metallurgical Plant.

Located approximately 50 kilometers east of Moscow.

Elektrostal is situated in close proximity to the Russian capital, making it easily accessible for both residents and visitors.

Known for its vibrant cultural scene.

Elektrostal is home to several cultural institutions, including museums, theaters, and art galleries that showcase the city’s rich artistic heritage.

A popular destination for nature lovers.

Surrounded by picturesque landscapes and forests, Elektrostal offers ample opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, camping, and birdwatching.

Hosts the annual Elektrostal City Day celebrations.

Every year, Elektrostal organizes festive events and activities to celebrate its founding, bringing together residents and visitors in a spirit of unity and joy.

Has a population of approximately 160,000 people.

Elektrostal is home to a diverse and vibrant community of around 160,000 residents, contributing to its dynamic atmosphere.

Boasts excellent education facilities.

The city is known for its well-established educational institutions, providing quality education to students of all ages.

A center for scientific research and innovation.

Elektrostal serves as an important hub for scientific research, particularly in the fields of metallurgy, materials science, and engineering.

Surrounded by picturesque lakes.

The city is blessed with numerous beautiful lakes, offering scenic views and recreational opportunities for locals and visitors alike.

Well-connected transportation system.

Elektrostal benefits from an efficient transportation network, including highways, railways, and public transportation options, ensuring convenient travel within and beyond the city.

Famous for its traditional Russian cuisine.

Food enthusiasts can indulge in authentic Russian dishes at numerous restaurants and cafes scattered throughout Elektrostal.

Home to notable architectural landmarks.

Elektrostal boasts impressive architecture, including the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord and the Elektrostal Palace of Culture.

Offers a wide range of recreational facilities.

Residents and visitors can enjoy various recreational activities, such as sports complexes, swimming pools, and fitness centers, enhancing the overall quality of life.

Provides a high standard of healthcare.

Elektrostal is equipped with modern medical facilities, ensuring residents have access to quality healthcare services.

Home to the Elektrostal History Museum.

The Elektrostal History Museum showcases the city’s fascinating past through exhibitions and displays.

A hub for sports enthusiasts.

Elektrostal is passionate about sports, with numerous stadiums, arenas, and sports clubs offering opportunities for athletes and spectators.

Celebrates diverse cultural festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal hosts a variety of cultural festivals, celebrating different ethnicities, traditions, and art forms.

Electric power played a significant role in its early development.

Elektrostal owes its name and initial growth to the establishment of electric power stations and the utilization of electricity in the industrial sector.

Boasts a thriving economy.

The city’s strong industrial base, coupled with its strategic location near Moscow, has contributed to Elektrostal’s prosperous economic status.

Houses the Elektrostal Drama Theater.

The Elektrostal Drama Theater is a cultural centerpiece, attracting theater enthusiasts from far and wide.

Popular destination for winter sports.

Elektrostal’s proximity to ski resorts and winter sport facilities makes it a favorite destination for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter activities.

Promotes environmental sustainability.

Elektrostal prioritizes environmental protection and sustainability, implementing initiatives to reduce pollution and preserve natural resources.

Home to renowned educational institutions.

Elektrostal is known for its prestigious schools and universities, offering a wide range of academic programs to students.

Committed to cultural preservation.

The city values its cultural heritage and takes active steps to preserve and promote traditional customs, crafts, and arts.

Hosts an annual International Film Festival.

The Elektrostal International Film Festival attracts filmmakers and cinema enthusiasts from around the world, showcasing a diverse range of films.

Encourages entrepreneurship and innovation.

Elektrostal supports aspiring entrepreneurs and fosters a culture of innovation, providing opportunities for startups and business development.

Offers a range of housing options.

Elektrostal provides diverse housing options, including apartments, houses, and residential complexes, catering to different lifestyles and budgets.

Home to notable sports teams.

Elektrostal is proud of its sports legacy, with several successful sports teams competing at regional and national levels.

Boasts a vibrant nightlife scene.

Residents and visitors can enjoy a lively nightlife in Elektrostal, with numerous bars, clubs, and entertainment venues.

Promotes cultural exchange and international relations.

Elektrostal actively engages in international partnerships, cultural exchanges, and diplomatic collaborations to foster global connections.

Surrounded by beautiful nature reserves.

Nearby nature reserves, such as the Barybino Forest and Luchinskoye Lake, offer opportunities for nature enthusiasts to explore and appreciate the region’s biodiversity.

Commemorates historical events.

The city pays tribute to significant historical events through memorials, monuments, and exhibitions, ensuring the preservation of collective memory.

Promotes sports and youth development.

Elektrostal invests in sports infrastructure and programs to encourage youth participation, health, and physical fitness.

Hosts annual cultural and artistic festivals.

Throughout the year, Elektrostal celebrates its cultural diversity through festivals dedicated to music, dance, art, and theater.

Provides a picturesque landscape for photography enthusiasts.

The city’s scenic beauty, architectural landmarks, and natural surroundings make it a paradise for photographers.

Connects to Moscow via a direct train line.

The convenient train connection between Elektrostal and Moscow makes commuting between the two cities effortless.

A city with a bright future.

Elektrostal continues to grow and develop, aiming to become a model city in terms of infrastructure, sustainability, and quality of life for its residents.

In conclusion, Elektrostal is a fascinating city with a rich history and a vibrant present. From its origins as a center of steel production to its modern-day status as a hub for education and industry, Elektrostal has plenty to offer both residents and visitors. With its beautiful parks, cultural attractions, and proximity to Moscow, there is no shortage of things to see and do in this dynamic city. Whether you’re interested in exploring its historical landmarks, enjoying outdoor activities, or immersing yourself in the local culture, Elektrostal has something for everyone. So, next time you find yourself in the Moscow region, don’t miss the opportunity to discover the hidden gems of Elektrostal.

Q: What is the population of Elektrostal?

A: As of the latest data, the population of Elektrostal is approximately XXXX.

Q: How far is Elektrostal from Moscow?

A: Elektrostal is located approximately XX kilometers away from Moscow.

Q: Are there any famous landmarks in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to several notable landmarks, including XXXX and XXXX.

Q: What industries are prominent in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal is known for its steel production industry and is also a center for engineering and manufacturing.

Q: Are there any universities or educational institutions in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal is home to XXXX University and several other educational institutions.

Q: What are some popular outdoor activities in Elektrostal?

A: Elektrostal offers several outdoor activities, such as hiking, cycling, and picnicking in its beautiful parks.

Q: Is Elektrostal well-connected in terms of transportation?

A: Yes, Elektrostal has good transportation links, including trains and buses, making it easily accessible from nearby cities.

Q: Are there any annual events or festivals in Elektrostal?

A: Yes, Elektrostal hosts various events and festivals throughout the year, including XXXX and XXXX.

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Friday 11 April 2014

Moscow metro - spirit of a city (e.p).

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