Gladis the killer whale and her gang of orcas, out for revenge on the yachts of Gibraltar
A British sailor’s boat was the latest victim in a spate of orca attacks on vessels near Gibraltar, as an expert suggested a “traumatised” killer whale may be inadvertently teaching others to target them. There have been 20 incidents this month alone between the highly social apex predators and small vessels sailing in the Strait of Gibraltar, according to the Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), with dozens of orca attacks on ships recorded on Spanish and Portuguese coasts this year. In the early hours of Thursday, a group of orcas broke the rudder and pierced the hull of a boat after ramming into the Mustique on its way to Gibraltar, prompting its crew of four to contact Spanish authorities for help, a spokesperson for the maritime rescue service said. The service deployed a rapid-response vessel and a helicopter carrying a bilge pump to assist the 20-metre (66ft) vessel, which was sailing under a British flag, a spokesperson for the maritime rescue service said. The Mustique was towed to the port of Barbate, in the province of Cadiz, for repairs. Posting footage of the ordeal on Instagram, British sailor April Boyes, aged 31, said: “What started off as a seemingly unique encounter ended with orcas breaking off our rudder from the boat, then proceeding to tear bits off the boat for an hour. “A huge hole in the hull meant we had water ingress to other parts of the boat and the engine room, and I can honestly say it was a scary experience. We are all safe. I’m feeling grateful for the coastguard.” Earlier in May, the sailing yacht Alboran Champagne suffered a similar impact from three orcas half a nautical mile off Barbate. The boat could not be towed as it was completely flooded and was left adrift to sink. The boat’s captain, Werner Schaufelberger, told the German magazine Yacht that he saw the two smaller whales imitating the ramming tactic of the larger orca, believed to be a matriarch named “White Gladis”. “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,” he said. “The two little orcas copied the bigger one’s technique and, with a slight run-up, came darting towards the boat. Mainly on the rudder, but also the keel.” Just two days previously, on 2 May, six orcas rammed the hull of a Bavaria 46 cruiser yacht in an encounter lasting an hour near Tangier, reportedly causing thousands of pounds of damage. Business consultant Janet Morris and photographer Stephen Bidwell, a couple from Cambridgeshire, both aged 58, were on board for a sailing course when they heard a shout of “orcas”. “We were sitting ducks,” Ms Morris told TheDaily Telegraph, while Mr Bidwell said: “I kept reminding myself we had a 22-tonne boat made of steel, but seeing three of them coming at once, quickly and at pace with their fins out of the water, was daunting.” “A clearly larger matriarch was definitely around and was almost supervising,” he added, speculating that it was White Gladis. The first orca encounter in the area occurred in May 2020, since when more than 500 have been recorded, according to the GTOA research group. Most interactions have been harmless, with orcas only touching an estimated one in every 100 boats passing through the area, according to biologist Alfredo Lopez Fernandez, of the GTOA and University of Aveiro, who said that three vessels have sunk so far. Experts believe White Gladis may have suffered a “critical moment of agony”, such as colliding with a boat or becoming entrapped during illegal fishing, which altered her behaviour in a “defensive” fashion. “That traumatised orca is the one that started this behaviour of physical contact with boats,” Dr Lopez Fernandez told Live Science. “We do not interpret that the orcas are teaching the young, although the behaviour has spread to the young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them, because they consider it something important in their lives,” he said. The behaviour has baffled scientists, with some initially suggesting it could be related to the harmful scarcity of food facing the mammals, or the disruptive resumption of business-as-usual nautical activities in the wake of the pandemic, while others have suggested it could be playful behaviour. Although known as killer whales, endangered orcas are part of the dolphin family. They can measure up to eight metres and weigh up to six tonnes as adults. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Watch killer whales wreck boat in latest violent attack off Spain Rare white orca spotted off Japanese coast for first time in two years Dolphins and orcas found to use ‘Kim Kardashian-like voice register’ to catch prey ‘Like a sledgehammer’: Killer whales perplex scientists by ramming sailing boats on Spanish coast
2023-05-28 22:16
Seven states reach 'historic' Colorado River water conservation deal
By Daniel Trotta and Rami Ayyub (Reuters) -Seven U.S. states that depend on the overused Colorado River on Monday reached
2023-05-23 04:25
A Crimean shipyard is on fire after a Ukrainian attack with 2 ships damaged and 24 people injured
The Sevastopol Shipyard in Russian-annexed Crimea is on fire after a Ukrainian attack with 24 people being injured and two ships that were being repaired there sustaining damage
2023-09-13 14:16
Liverpool make contact with Dominik Szoboszlai over summer transfer
Liverpool have initiated contact with the representatives of RB Leipzig's Dominik Szoboszlai regarding a summer transfer. Newcastle United are also interested in a deal.
2023-06-28 21:26
Wetherspoon Shares Rise as Profit Outlook Improves for Next Year
JD Wetherspoon Plc shares gained as sales rise above pre-pandemic levels and the UK pub chain anticipates improved
2023-07-12 16:18
OpenAI may have made a ‘dangerous’ artificial intelligence discover that led to chaos, Elon Musk says
OpenAI may have discovered “something dangerous” that caused chaos at the company, Elon Musk has said. Recent days have seen ChatGPT creator OpenAI fire and then re-hire its chief executive, Sam Altman. Many of the circumstances of that decision still remain entirely mysterious, and it is not clear why OpenAI’s board removed Mr Altman. Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI, as part of his response to concerns that artificial intelligence could prove dangerous to humanity. But he has been critical of its recent direction, including its turn towards operating for a profit and no longer open sourcing its work. During the New York Times’s Dealbook conference, Mr Musk said that he had attempted to find out what happened behind the scenes at OpenAI, but had failed to do so. He had reached out to numerous people working at the company, including Ilya Sutskever, the OpenAI chief scientist and board member who is believed to have led the rebellion against Mr Altman, but had not heard anything. But he suggested that the company had found “something dangerous” that had caused Mr Sutskever to be concerned. He said that the most likely scenario was a worrying breakthrough that had led the company to try and avoid the danger. He was asked by journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin whether he meant that he thought something dangerous had been discovered within the company. Mr Musk said that would be his guess. In the same interview, Mr Musk once again criticised OpenAI’s move away from the open source and non-profit principles that it had been founded with. He also suggested that artificial intelligence companies were lying if they claimed their artificial intelligence systems were not trained on people’s data. But he said that any lawsuits over the issue will not be settled before we have a “digital god”, and would therefore be irrelevant. Earlier, he had told advertisers that left the company over antisemitic content to “go f*** yourself”. His profanity-laced remarks followed a moment of contrition in a New York Times DealBook Summit interview, as he first said “I’m sorry” for a tweet that agreed with an anti-Jewish post on X on Nov. 15. Musk has faced a torrent of criticism since he on Nov. 15 agreed with a user who falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the user who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory was speaking “the actual truth.” On Wednesday Musk said he had “handed a loaded gun” to detractors, describing his post as possibly the worst he had made during a history of messages that included many “foolish” ones. The Tesla CEO bristled at the idea that he was antisemitic and said that advertisers who left X, formerly known as Twitter, should not think they could blackmail him, saying “fuck you” numerous times. At one point he added the words “Hey Bob,” an apparent reference to Robert Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney, which pulled ads on X. The “Great Replacement” theory holds that Jewish people and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants that will lead to a “white genocide.” Musk‘s post drew condemnation from the White House for what it called an “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate.” Following the post, major U.S. companies including Walt Disney, Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal parent Comcast suspended their ads on X. A report from liberal watchdog group Media Matters precipitated the advertiser exit, which said it found ads next to posts that supported Nazism. The platform filed a lawsuit last week against Media Matters for defamation. Additional reporting by Reuters Read More Elon Musk publicly tells advertisers to ‘go f*** yourselves’ Elon Musk mocked for trying to resurrect QAnon Pizzagate conspiracy Elon Musk set to meet Netanyahu and hostage families in Israel Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’ Elon Musk’s antisemitic comments have pushed X advertisers over the edge Democrats accuse Elon Musk and X of profiting from Hamas propaganda
2023-11-30 07:57
Vatican court convicts climate activists for damaging statue, fines them more than 28,000 euros
A Vatican court has convicted two environmental activists of aggravated damage after they glued their hands to an ancient statue in the Vatican Museums in a protest to draw attention to climate change
2023-06-12 23:50
This refurbished iPad mini 2 is just $88
TL;DR: As of August 23, you can get a refurbished iPad mini 2 for just
2023-08-23 17:24
Today's Dylan Dreyer takes over Carson Daly's 'PopStart' segment amid his extended absence from NBC show
'Today' host Carson Daly has not yet given a reason for his continued absence from the NBC show
2023-08-19 12:28
World well short of pace needed to meet UN's 2030 sustainable development goals
The world is falling well short of the progress needed to meet the United Nations’ sustainable development goals by 2030 in areas ranging from poverty to clean energy to biodiversity
2023-06-22 00:49
Royce Lewis hits his 2nd slam in 2 days; Twins top the Guardians 10-6 for 7-game lead
Royce Lewis hit his second grand slam in as many games to give the Minnesota Twins a second-inning jolt in a 10-6 victory over the Cleveland Guardians
2023-08-29 10:50
Utah kids' book author accused in husband's killing changed life insurance policies, prosecutors say
Updated charging documents say a Utah woman who wrote a children’s book about grief after her husband’s death and was later arrested on accusations of killing him made changes to her husband’s life insurance years before he was fatally poisoned
2023-05-19 10:22
You Might Like...
RFK Jr could draw one in seven US voters in 2024 presidential election - Reuters/Ipsos poll
Walmart says it is not advertising on social platform X
What is 'BS High' about? Michael Strahan promotes HBO documentary he produced on 'GMA'
Kelly Clarkson explains how she got Steve Martin to perform on her new album
FEDML Nexus AI: The Next-Gen Cloud Services for LLMs and Generative AI
'Fox & Friends' host Janice Dean slams CDC's cover-up of Howard Zucker's controversial pandemic policies and questions his promotion
Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied spotted sharing a kiss amid rumors of affair with 25-year-old woman
The CEO of Allegiant Air's parent company is out after barely a year, replaced by the former boss