Sunk another boat. They hates them some rudders.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211269495/orca-boat-yacht-attack-spain-morocco
For 45 minutes, the crew of the Grazie Mamma felt like they were under attack from below. A pod of orcas had zeroed in on the yacht's rudder as it made its way through the Strait of Gibraltar last week, and rammed it repeatedly, "causing major damage and leakage," according to the company that operated the boat.
Rescuers were able to save the crew and return them safely to port in Tanger-Med on the coast of Morocco. Their vessel, though, sank into the sea.
Since 2020, there have been about 500 encounters between orcas and boats, Alfredo López Fernandez, a coauthor of a 2022 study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, told NPR earlier this year. At least three boats have sunk, though there is no record of an orca killing a human in the wild.
Scientists have been trying to pinpoint the cause of the behavior.
One theory among researchers is they're just playing around. Other researchers say it may be that the whales like the feel of the rudder.
"What we think is that they're asking to have the propeller in the face," said Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at CIRCE Conservación Information and Research in Spain, in an interview with NPR last year. When they encounter a sailboat without its engine on, "they get kind of frustrated and that's why they break the rudder," de Stephanis said.
Another theory is that the behavior may be some sort of act of revenge due to possibly traumatic, previous encounters with fishing boats.
"I definitely think orcas are capable of complex emotions like revenge," Monika Wieland Shields, director of the Orca Behavior Institute previously told NPR. Shields said she does not think "we can completely rule it out," even if she was not entirely convinced herself.