- It's hitting now.
[RUMBLE]
- Yeah.
- Orcas are attacking and sinking boats off the coast
of Southern Spain.
This video showing a killer whale slamming into a sailboat,
damaging the rudder and tearing a hole in the bottom.
Spanish authorities towed the ship back to port.
There are a lot of theories out there--
that, in one case, a female orca was
traumatized by a boat collision and began
taking it out on other ships.
And then fellow orcas kind of learned
how to follow suit on that.
Another theory is that this simply
is a game that juvenile orcas are playing for fun.
So what do you think is going on?
DEBORAH GILES: I tend to be more in the camp
of the second facility there where the whales
have picked up this behavior.
They do learn from each other.
They are incredibly social animals.
They're smart and can pick up behaviors quickly.
I'm in that camp of play as opposed to, say,
an aggressive thing because I believe,
given what we know about killer whales in general,
if they were really trying to take a boat down,
they would be hitting it harder.
They would be hitting it I think in a more concerted effort.
There seems to be a lot of interest in the rudder,
in the underside of the boat that the whales
are focusing on.
And the other thing that really makes
me feel that it's more of a plaything with the boat
is that when the boats have become completely
disabled by sinking, something like
that, then people are transferred to smaller boats,
the whales leave.
They don't continue their interaction
with the second vessel.
- Oh, interesting.
DEBORAH GILES: And so I do think that it's more of a play thing
as opposed to an aggressive thing.