Whale of a tale

For a few months there’ve been stories in the news about orcas attacking smallish boats off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It wasn’t just a single incident, but multiple events where the killer whales rammed yachts and fishing boats; in some instances, they sank the craft.

Initially there were theories that some yahoos on a yacht had pointlessly injured an orca, and that word spread among the pods, resulting in coordinated attacks on anything that vaguely resembled the offending vessel.

I mean—orcas can be assholes, no doubt about it. You don't want to get between a hungry killer whale and a seal. It'll crush you, your boat and all your hopes in a New York instant, and won't ever show a sign of remorse.

But now there’s been A Study, and it may be that orcas—specifically the teenaged orcas—are merely playing with Things Hanging Off Boats, like rudders. Playing in the sense that they ram them until they break off and then they can toss it amongst themselves like dribbling a basketball. This was exacerbated by the rise in numbers of their food source, bluefin tuna, so they didn’t have to spend all the hours God sends finding lunch; they had time on their hands and got bored.

It apparently turns out that, absent organized after-school activities, gangs of teenagers just do what gangs of teenagers do. Human, orca—whatever.

But wait—there’s more.

It also seems that orca teens—even without TikTok and Instagram—create and follow fads. Viz: in 1987, juvenile killer whales in the Pacific Northwest started swimming around with dead salmon on their heads. It was all the rage, like Swatch watches and mullets on land.

But here’s the thing: the dead salmon hat thing spread to adult orcas, and then the trend died out.

Teenagers be like: “Well, now the olds are doing it, so it’s all ruined.”

Sounds about right.

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