It's always nice to see, how active the
-
TaraDeS — 1 month ago(February 16, 2026 10:03 AM)
Behavioural Biology
How Orcas communicate
Orcas are talkative animals. They communicate constantly within their families or with other orca groups.
What do they talk about? Behavioural biologists and AI experts try to decipher the orca language.
Orca Sounds | Whistes, Echolocation, Calls
(not the video in the article)
The sounds of the sea are Heike Vester's specialty. The Stuttgart-based behavioural biologist studies how whales — and especially orcas — communicate with each other for 20 years. Blue whales and fin whales sometimes communicate over thousands of kilometers. Toothed whales (including orcas) use echolocation: They emit clicking sounds and wait for the echo to orient themselves. In this way, they can
'see'
with their highly sensitive hearing.
Biologist Heike Vester teaches and conducts research on whales at the Nord University in Bodø.
Orca Behaviour
At her research base in Bodø, Norway, Vester spends much time at sea in a small inflatable boat, recording ocean sounds with underwater microphones and observing the orcas' behaviour. The goal: to deduce the meaning of the sounds from the combination of observation and listening.
The Language of Orcas is Diverse
In addition to clicks, orcas have their own unique repertoire. Sounds that researchers named calls, some with a very specific structure. Then there are whistles in between, which are relatively simple sounds, and sounds that Vester describes as grunts or chatters, which may express emotions.
Computer Programs for Pattern Recognition
First, all these clicks, calls and whistles must be found in the thousands of hours of underwater recordings. Vester's organization
Ocean Sounds
therefore collaborates with machine learning experts at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg.
Elmar Nöth and his team from the Chair of Pattern Recognition repeatedly analyze the enormous datasets using computer programs already trained on orca sounds. The first task is to determine whether orcas can be heard during a given time period and for how long. Was it a single animal or an interaction between several? If so, what happened during this interaction? All these sounds are visualized in a spectrogram for analysis. But Vester can currently only determine the meaning of a few sounds.
"I know a few where I know it's the mother calling for her calf or
'Hooray, here's a salmon!'
"
Noise makes Orcas 'blind'
What worries biologist Vester most in her work is the amount of underwater noise she records with orca sounds.
Besides the constant drone of ship engines, there are often explosions every second, used in the search for oil and gas.
Vester's work allows her to demonstrate that the noise affects the animals:
"If you understand whale communication, you can better assess when they are stressed or becoming aggressive. So it's perfectly clear that if the noise becomes too much, they stop communicating."
….
….
https://www.tagesschau.de/wissen/tiere/orca-unterhaltung-forschung-laute-100.html
February 16, 2026
It's cute that they deciphered the
"Hooray, here's a salmon!"
.
So, orcas experience in certain areas New Year's Eve every day, complete with underwater fireworks.
Which brings me back considering noise pollution as a possible cause of unusual orca behaviour.
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/21403523/permalink/#p21403523
(in this thread) -
TaraDeS — 1 month ago(February 27, 2026 10:00 AM)
Cannibalism among Orcas?
–> Probably not.
Two orca subspecies live off the west coast of North America [
Canada & USA
].
Fin discoveries suggest that one preys on the other and that the hunted rely on family ties for defense.
Orcas fascinate us because they're so similar to us: intelligent, social and sometimes cruel.
*
The discovery made by Sergey Fomin in August 2022 on the coast of Siberia's Bering Island was macabre. On the beach, the employee of the Pacific Geographical Institute in Russia discovered the severed dorsal fin of an orca. It was only 47 centimeters long, so it likely came from a juvenile. Small injuries were visible at regular intervals on the gray-black skin: Fresh marks from orca teeth. This was remarkable because no one ever observed cannibalism among orcas. There was only one report from the whaling era, whose author discovered the remains of orcas in the stomachs of two other orcas. Fomin himself previously only found gnawed dorsal fins of Baird's and Minke whales, species that are on the orcas' menu.
….
….
Scavengers or Cannibals?
The Russian-Danish team's argument isn't watertight. First, two washed-up fins provide a thin data basis, especially since cannibalism among orcas was never observed before. Canadian researcher Jared Towers only witnessed one instance of infanticide among transient orcas. He saw a mother and son kill the newborn calf of another group. The attackers didn't eat the carcass but let it sink to the seabed.
Towers and his team suspect that their real interest was in the mother. If her calf dies, she is receptive again within a few months and could mate with the murderous male.
A second argument against the cannibalism hypothesis is that the bite marks could've been caused by other means. Perhaps the dorsal fins were torn off during a fight. Or hungry orcas were feeding on the remains of their fellow orcas.
"Orcas are known to scavenge, including carcasses of fellow orcas killed by whalers during the era of commercial whaling,"
the authors acknowledge.
"The carcasses of recently deceased orcas typically sink quickly, making them inaccessible for consumption."
Therefore, targeted attacks are a plausible explanation. Resident and transient orcas are so different that it's more likely one is fighting the other.
What will certainly rub the researchers the wrong way is the headline in the British tabloid
The Sun
.
The paper proclaimed:
"WHALES AT WAR Horror signs killer whales have descended into cannibalistic
civil war with ‘one deadly orca subspecies EATING another’"
Well, then — Bon Appétit.
https://www.geo.de/natur/tierwelt/kannibalismus-bei-orcas--was-neue-funde-zeigen-37172186.html
February 26, 2026
Yah, orcas are known for their strong family bonds and their ruthlessness when it comes to defending.
Therefore, the described scientific theory is more likely that the found 2 dorsal fins were of young, megalomaniacal orcas who paid for their careless approach with their lives.
️️
It was news to me that orcas deliberately kill the calves of other orca families.
It reminds me of our cute, little ones.
*
Whether humans are truly
that
intelligent is debatable. -
TaraDeS — 1 month ago(February 27, 2026 10:11 AM)
GuywhomadeMadosukocheeksclap February 27, 2026 11:01 AM
Member since February 14, 2026
Why bump this? Sadistic pleasure?
This dumb sock
🤪 cannot distinguish between a cheap bump and a debatable topic (cannibalism). ️️ -
TaraDeS — 1 month ago(February 27, 2026 10:25 AM)
nimda/ February 27, 2026 11:23 AM
Member since January 15, 2026
Tara, sorry to bring bad news. The poster is right. You shouldnt report someone just because you don't like them.
That's not why the report function was designed.
@nimda
Next troll sock🤪 continues trolling and tells bs. -
TaraDeS — 1 week ago(March 25, 2026 03:02 AM)
Nothing really new on the
'orca front'
lately.
With the loooong article below, I really hoped that the official experts would finally know
the background of these
"interactions"
, but that's not the case.
However, this article is a good summary of the events since 2020 and the current legal situation,
so I translated it although, yah, with support of a translator.
For a
to this topic:
Orcas could easily completely destroy the sailboats
but they never did.
And still, not a single wild orca anywhere in the world attacked a human.
Why are there Orca Interactions with Sailboats off Gibraltar?
Since 2020, Iberian orcas repeatedly interacted with sailboats near the Strait of Gibraltar and off the Iberian Atlantic coast, extending into the northern Bay of Biscay. More than 700 incidents were recorded. So far, 8 boats sank after encounters with orcas, which are known to damage the rudders. The most recent incident occurred on October 10, 2025. Fortunately, no people were injured in any of these incidents.
[
On October 10, 2025 a couple with their 3 daughters were rescued by fishermen/heli.
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/22833706/permalink/#p22833706
(in this thread)
]
A sailboat sank off the Costa da Caparica in September 2025.
A disturbing, criminal incident occurred on August 17, 2023 off Tarifa. A sailing crew shot at orcas with firecrackers or other pyrotechnics in an attempt to scare them away. The use of pyrotechnics and deterrents (pingers) is prohibited, but is repeatedly used illegally, as can be read in relevant forums.
[
On August 17, 2023 people on another boat protested
"Hombres, No!"
Video in this thread.
https://www.filmboards.com/board/p/22844223/permalink/#p22844223
(in this thead)
]
Mayday – Boats sank after Orca Interactions
Eight sailboats sank since mid-2022 after playful orcas damaged the rudders so severely that water
flooded in. Fortunately, in all cases, the crew members escaped unharmed and were rescued.
Orca interacton off the Iberian Peninsula.
[great photo]
The most recent incident occurred on October 10, 2025, approximately 90 km off the Portuguese coast near Peniche. Just under a month earlier on September 13, 2025 a group of orcas attacked a sailboat relatively close to shore near Lisbon. In that instance, too, the marine mammals damaged the rudder so severely that the boat sank while being towed.
While the chance of encountering orcas is lower when navigating in shallower coastal waters, there's still
no absolute guarantee.
"It's important to remember that we deal with marine mammals who possess complex cognitive and social abilities and can adapt their behaviour to new situations,"
explains Ulrich Karlowski, a biologist with the German Marine Conservation Foundation.
Orca Interactions began in 2020
Since July 2020, orca interactions with boats occurred repeatedly in and around the Strait of Gibraltar and now as far afield as the Bay of Biscay. Most of the boats involved were sailboats under 15 meters in length, according to scientists from the Iberian Orca Working Group (GTOA). Motorboats and fishing vessels are rarely targeted by the orcas, which are related to dolphins and are also known as
"killer whales"
.
The GTOA team studies Iberian orcas for a long time. Following the first incidents in July 2020, a total of 51 interactions were recorded that year, now more than 700 incidents. These are recorded by the GTOA on an online map.
Damaged rudder.
Risk Areas
The focus of orca activity is in southwestern Spain and the Strait of Gibraltar. According to GTOA, Iberian orcas follow their primary prey, bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus). These tuna migrate to the Strait of Gibraltar and the western Mediterranean to spawn between June and August. When the tuna leave the Mediterranean, the orcas follow them westward and northward.
While the main orca activity in 2020 and 2021 took place from June to October,
2022 saw the first orca-sailboat interactions during the winter months.
Bay of Biscay and Mediterranean Sea
In the summer of 2023, the first orca encounters occurred off the Moroccan coast near the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. And also south of Marbella on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, as reported by the British Cruising Association.
On September 6th, 2023 Lübeck-based skipper Clara Weimer got into trouble at sea. 15 kilometers off the Spanish coast near Cape Finisterre, four orcas damaged the hull and rudder of her sailboat so severely that it had to be towed.
In mid-September 2023, an interaction occurred for the first time about 72 nautical miles off the French Atlantic coast near Hourtin. The sailboat's rudder was so badly damaged that it had to be towed.
Orcas are fast.
Possible Background
Why do these intelligent marine mammals target sailboats, especially those under 15 meters in length? Sailboats, of all things, one might ask, since they are one of the most environmentally friendly ways to travel on the water.
The researchers found no evidence of aggressive behavio