According to NBC, the phenomenon of killer whales attacking fishing boats operating in the Strait of Gibraltar has appeared more and more frequently in the past 5 years.
With the alarming frequency of attacks, Spanish authorities have had to issue warnings and call on fishermen to fish close to shore to stay safe.
Fisherman Manuel Merianda shared that he was attacked by a pod of killer whales while fishing far from shore. They approached his boat and then slammed their bodies into the rudder.
Merianda was so scared, at that time he could only helplessly wait for the danger to pass. The fisherman thought that the killer whale was protecting its territory, “we were the intruders, at that time we should not have been there”.
The Atlantic Killer Whale Working Group (GTOA) said there have been about 700 encounters between killer whales and ships, and more than half of them have suffered serious damage, with some nearly sinking.
Scientists say that killer whales are highly intelligent animals and they are very gentle, especially with humans, so it is difficult to believe in this phenomenon.
Janek Andre - a member of the conservation organization WeWhale - spoke up to defend this species, he said they were just playing and interacting with humans.
What humans perceive as attacks are actually just adult individuals teaching and training their young to hunt, according to a study published in the scientific journal Ocean and Coastal Management in September.
An adult killer whale is more than 8m long and weighs up to 6 tons.
They are one of the top species of the ocean food chain, their main food is tuna. Killer whales are known to be highly intelligent and have their own language of communication.
The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa.
Scientists from the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute said that the Strait of Gibraltar has shown signs of a strong recovery of the tuna population, which has led to killer whales frequently visiting the area in recent years.
