A recent encounter between sailors and killer whales highlights the need for deeper understanding of the natural world. <\/p>
A French sailor named Lou told me recently about his frightening encounter with a\u00a0group of orcas, or killer whales. The majestic marine mammals were behaving troublingly. Five of\u00a0them approached and rammed into the hull of the yacht he was sailing, spinning it\u00a0around repeatedly. \u00a0<\/p>
This whole incident lasted 80 minutes and resulted in the small sailing vessel\u2019s rudder being split in\u00a0two. The orcas then appeared to play with the floating foam that leaked from the\u00a0insides of the broken rudder, pushing it around with their noses. \u00a0<\/p>
In the shipyard, Lou explained to me: \u201cIt looked like the orcas were playing, and\u00a0that they were training each other.”\u00a0<\/p>
This is just one of a series of incidents that you might well have read or heard about. This is\u00a0because a population of Iberian orcas in the Atlantic have, in the last few years,\u00a0developed this strange habit of \u2018attacking\u2019 boats. \u00a0<\/p>
I thought Lou\u2019s account was remarkably thoughtful under the circumstances. He\u00a0never used the word \u2018attack\u2019, only \u2018encounter\u2019. Another sailor I spoke to described\u00a0his experience as a \u201cdance with my orca friends\u201d. \u00a0<\/p>
You may have seen headlines that have employed some alarming, emotional\u00a0language to describe the behaviour of this particular population of marine mammals.\u00a0The term ‘attack’ suggests an aggressive assault. Some reports have suggested that\u00a0the animals, that move through one of the world\u2019s busiest waterways hunting for\u00a0tuna, are seeking revenge on boats.<\/p>
Read more about animals:<\/strong><\/p> There is no shortage of evidence of marine mammals being harmed by boats<\/a> \u2013 injured by\u00a0propellors and by fishing gear or affected by the chronic noise from constant\u00a0shipping activity<\/a> that can affect their ability to feed and communicate.<\/p> But creating a narrative where these orcas are angry, vengeful or bent on teaching us\u00a0humans in our fragile sailing boats a lesson is at best unwise and at worst dangerous. In doing that, we\u2019re telling a story in which humans are on one side of the battle and\u00a0orcas are on the other. \u00a0<\/p> Conflict between people and wildlife is not just the basis for an enticing headline. It\u00a0is, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a serious\u00a0threat to our efforts to co-exist with the natural world<\/a>. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p> Researchers from Spanish conservation organisations have now asked sailors to submit\u00a0videos of any encounters they have with the animals so they can study their\u00a0behaviour and work out whether this risky new habit of theirs is spreading through\u00a0the population.<\/p> Scientists in Tarifa, in the south of Spain, close to where many of these incidents\u00a0have been reported, are also setting out to track the animals with GPS tags. This is\u00a0more invasive research, but it is giving them real-time data about where the orcas\u00a0are. \u00a0<\/p> When I first reported on the Iberian killer whales\u2019 unusual new behaviour, I spoke to neuroscientist Lori Marino<\/a>, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, who is\u00a0one of the few people to have seen inside the brain of a killer whale after scanning the brain of a deceased captive orca<\/a> for a study back in 2004.<\/p> \u201cParts of their brains \u2013 like the limbic system that you can think of as the emotional\u00a0processor \u2013 they share with us. So, they probably do experience anger, grief and joy,\u201d she says.<\/p> \u201cBut if we try to say that these social, intelligent, playful animals are solely good and\u00a0peaceful \u2013 or solely bad and aggressive, we\u2019re turning them into caricatures.\u201d<\/p> We can\u2019t look inside of mind of a living orca, but we do know from studies of their\u00a0behaviour, and their brains, that these are complex, intelligent animals with culture and deep familial\u00a0bonds<\/a>. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p> We have information and scientific tools at our disposal to find out how best to\u00a0navigate this strange new situation. We can see signs of playfulness in their behaviour. And we can see that the survival\u00a0of this specific population is directly linked to stocks of tuna in that region.<\/p> We could\u00a0use that information to manage fisheries. We can even tag and track the animals\u00a0(providing we\u2019re not harming them) so we can take on the responsibility of keeping\u00a0our distance. \u00a0<\/p> When I left Lou the sailor and his crew mates in the Spanish shipyard, all he wanted\u00a0to know was where the orcas were most likely to be, so he could leave them in peace\u00a0(and avoid any more damage to his boat). \u00a0<\/p> While we can\u2019t understand the orcas\u2019 motivation and we certainly can\u2019t control their\u00a0behaviour, we can use all that data to help keep ourselves, and our boats, a safe\u00a0distance from them. \u00a0<\/p> So, let\u2019s not cast wild animals as our enemies. We have enough problems co-existing\u00a0with nature without turning a complex situation into a battle of us versus them.\u00a0<\/p> Lori is the founder and president of The Whale Sanctuary Project. She is a neuroscientist and expert in animal behaviour and intelligence, formerly on the faculty of Emory University. Her research has been published in the journals\u00a0Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals<\/em>,\u00a0PLOS Biology<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America<\/em>.<\/p> Read more about animals:<\/strong><\/p> A recent encounter between sailors and killer whales highlights the need for deeper understanding of the natural world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":32762,"template":"","categories":[1,29],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"5"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2023\/09\/care-about-animals-then-you-need-to-stop-treating-them-like-humans.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A recent encounter between sailors and killer whales highlights the need for deeper understanding of the natural world.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/32761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
About our expert, Lori Marino<\/h4>
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