"You're gonna need a bigger boat ..."
--Chief Martin Brody
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Move over, you sissy Great White sharks. There's a new gang in town.
Reuters reports that last Thursday, three killer whales, also known as orcas (and fittingly the name of Quint's vessel in "Jaws") disabled a vessel in the Strait of Gibralter. They did it by breaking the rudder and piercing the hull ... on purpose.
Just wait. It gets better.
This is not the first time. In the month of May alone "at least 20 interactions ... between small vessels and the highly social apex predators" occurred. In 2022, there were 207. We're talking about animals that can reach up to 26 feet in length and 12,000 pounds in adulthood.
Why are they doing this? Why does anyone lash out?
We suppose it's the old "one bad apple spoils the whole bunch" theory. That's basically the theory of marine biologist Aflredo Lopez Fernandez, who tells the press that one orca, named "White Gladis" (what a great name for a rock band), had a "critical moment of agony" involving a boat, then taught ocean friends how to sink a boat.
In a May 4 incident, a group of three sank a boat using a specific technique. "The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side," said the boat's skipper.
He went on to say, "The two little ones observed the bigger one's technique and, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat."
Authorities say that only 1 percent of boats in the Strait of Gibraltar ever has any type of run-in at all. However, we imagine those on the sinking boats are 100 percent sure they're sinking.
Deborah Giles, an orca researcher at the University of Washington, told Live Science, "They are incredibly curious and playful animals."
So are pitbulls ....