Orca.Photo: Getty
Multiple sailors off the coast of Europe have found themselves getting too close for comfort with orcas, who are causing a bit of a stir in the region lately.
Earlier this month, Ester Kristine Storkson and her father experienced one of the more dramatic incidents on record — and one of the furthest away from where they’d more recently been happening.
Storkson had been asleep on her father’s small yacht off the coast of France when she was jolted awake. She found several orcas surrounding the boat, with the steering wheel swinging rapidly and turning the boat in the opposite direction, NPR reported.
The woman said the animals were “ramming the boat,” and explained that “they [hit] us repeatedly … giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack.”
She said after about 15 minutes the orcas left, and she and her father assessed what had happened. After lowering a Go-Pro into the water they realized that “approximately three-quarters of [the rudder] was broken off, and some metal was bent.”
The father-daughter pair had enough of the rudder to make it back to shore, but it delayed their plan of sailing around the world.
Scientists had been working off of the idea that just a few animals had been involved in these incidents, NPR said, noting that they are social creatures who often follow their own “trends” of activities that they participate in and eventually tire or grow out of.
The organizationsaidthat as whales appear to be moving north, specifically near the Galicia region, they are advising the public against “navigating this area at night to reduce risks and rescue difficulties.”
NPR also noted that while the animals can be aggressive in these incidents, thereis “no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.”
source: people.com
