Orcas, A.K.A “Killer whales” have been recorded as more docile and social creatures, but over the past three years they have started to live up to the killer name. Over the past three years the aggression displayed by orcas has gradually increased. Since 2020 there has been a 298% increase in orca interactions with boats. These behaviors are unusual for orcas and have brought great amounts of attention to the problem. This aggression is not only being targeted towards boats but also larger species of whales along with sharks and dolphins. Over the past three years a greater amount of effort has been put towards studying orca behaviors.
There are many things unusual about the change in orca behavior. One of the most prominent changes is the increased size in their pods. While this does occasionally happen for short spans of time, it has rarely ever occurred at this large of a scale for an expanded period of time. Even weirder orcas are starting to attack blue whales which are roughly four times larger than they are and weigh 20-30 times more. This is a very strange thing for an orca to do because of the sheer size and power of the Blue Whale. Even when the blue whales have the ability to overpower an entire pod of orcas.
Through observations of orcas and the environment around them and where they are from scientists have three main possibilities. One is due to former trauma of some orcas due to a negative encounter with a fishing vessel. Another could be due to a lack of prey caused by overfishing. Their final thought is that they have learned that humans are the cause of the destruction of their habitat and are acting in a form of revenge, or trying to get rid of us to hopefully solve the problem. While they think that these could possibly be the cause they don’t know for certain at this moment in time. Overall the orcas are getting more aggressive and it is causing problems, hopefully we will find out what’s causing the problem and find a solution sooner rather than later. If we can’t find a solution soon the orcas could cause large environmental and overall damage.
