During the 4 decades that Candido Cosello Sanchez spent in the seas, he witnessed many events and went through many experiences, but a recent incident in which a killer whale took part represented a new development that this captain did not undertake.

"I've never seen anything like this in my life," Sanchez recalls. "I have never met such an event for 40 years at sea, even though I as a sailor have seen many events."

The captain of a Spanish warship says he was two nautical miles from the coast of the Spanish town of Galicia when a group of whales appeared from inside the blue waters.

The ship’s crew members were quick to record this rare footage using their cell phones, and the sailors ’voices sounded in astonishment saying,“ Wow, what a colossal creature! ”

As the whales were retreating in the water, a sailor pointed to the sea, and said, "There, they are there, they are eating the rudder of our ship."

The crew of the ship, which includes a group of experienced sailors, was amazed, so they were accustomed to seeing killer whales.

Killer whales usually attack other marine creatures, and they devour tuna, herring, seals, penguins, sea birds, dolphins, other whales and sharks, but in the past they did not target humans and ships.

Revenge and revenge

However, this trend may be on the way to change, as the killer whales approached the warship "Mirvac" in August 2020, 6 attacks were recorded within two months in the Gibraltar Pass, 4 near the coast of Portugal, and then another attack. Near the coast of Galicia.

In addition, 15 accidents occurred a month after the "Mirvac" accident occurred off the northwest coast of Spain, according to local media.

Scientists are trying to understand the causes of the unusual attacks.

At least in these cases, geography can be significant, as killer whales migrate from the coast of Andalusia, Spain, during the summer, across Portuguese waters, to reach north to the Bay of Biscay on the west coast of France, in pursuit of tuna swarms.

Scientists say that it is known that killer whales are social creatures, and they mostly "just want to have fun." However, what is less clear is why there are so many of these sudden attacks by whales crashing into ships so hard that the crews lose control On ships and they are unable to run them, and the scientists have not come up with answers yet.

However, there is a strange theory to explain these incidents, which is revenge. Whales may be carrying out revenge operations, according to Victor Hernandez, researcher, environmental expert and award-winning author.

He explains that a group of 13 killer whales, led by a male whale, attacked the ships in response to an accident last July in the Strait of Gibraltar when two female whales were injured by the hooked spears that are used to hunt large marine creatures.

Corona

"The fishermen and crews of whale watching vessels have seen the injured whales, and told me about it," Hernandez told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

For her part, Maria del Carmen Rodriguez - a biologist specializing in marine mammals - proposes a different theory, expressing her belief that whale attacks are just a response to the Corona pandemic.

"Maybe the killer whales have become accustomed to the calm that months brought in by the closure of the seas," she told Spanish radio station Kobe.

"In the summer, the loud noise returned again, while the volume of ship traffic increased. The noise may have annoyed the whales, angered them, and exposed them to a kind of pressure," she added.