> In this case, it's very likely that someone hurt one of them and they're now trying to make the world safer for themselves. They've figured out a way to deal with the entity they see as a threat and they've spread that knowledge.
They seems to target only sailboats' rudders, which are arguably the most innoffensive of boats out there, but also the easiest prays. What I heard is that it seems like one orca decided it was fun (who actually knows their intent) and then the fashion spread.
It seems more likely to me that some kids are having a good time messing with sailboats, than some sort of revenge or something.
I saw conjecture on twitter (unfortunately I didn’t save the tweet) that they were targeting rudders because of the similarity to tuna fins. They hunt tuna by removing the fins, to prevent the fish fleeing, and the tweeter’s hypothesis was that they are using the sailboats as practice
> one orca decided it was fun (who actually knows their intent) and then the fashion spread.
there's also been speculation that an orca discovered the method after being injured by a boat.
Researchers aren’t sure why the orcas are going after the watercraft. There are two hypotheses, according to López. One is that the killer whales have invented a new fad, something that subpopulations of these members of the dolphin family are known to do. Much as in humans, orca fads are often spearheaded by juveniles, López says. Alternatively, the attacks may be a response to a bad past experience involving a boat.
If it was past experience involving a boat, you'd think they'd attack powerboats. I really doubt a sailboat would have likely been involved into hurting orcas to the point where they would have learned to attack sailboats. Sailboats have keels in front of small propellers, and the propellers are usually purposefully not "exposed" or the first thing to be hit when colliding with an underwater object.
On the other hand, power boats have very shallow draft, basically no keel, and much larger and exposed propellers. And yet, it's sailboats that are attacked.
Hence to me it's quite obvious that the orcas are taking on the sailboats because sailboats are easy, slow and vulnerable targets. It's more likely that a bunch of young orcas are being jerks, like teenage humans are to vulnerable people. Also I don't buy that somehow orcas would be this pure, unable to do evil, species that is merely induced to be angry as a whole group because of the big bad humans. If they have a social structure, they have members of society that are jerks.
One way or another it's a problem if they target vulnerable boats.
Not sure if you're familiar with the kea[0], but it's a rather intelligent alpine parrot, and very social, and, like orca, when one learns something new, the knowledge is transferred to its peers quickly.
When I was living in a village in the mountains, groups of young male kea would come down to the village to have fun and incidentally cause trouble.
E.g., one group would hang out by the public toilets, and when people would pull in to use it, the kea gang would deflate a car tyre, sometimes two, it felt like a way of showing how tough they were, because one kea would remove the valve cap, then the other kea (plural) would take turns depressing the valve to make that "pfsssh" noise for as long as they could handle it, then to a chorus of cackles from its peers.
They seems to target only sailboats' rudders, which are arguably the most innoffensive of boats out there, but also the easiest prays. What I heard is that it seems like one orca decided it was fun (who actually knows their intent) and then the fashion spread.
It seems more likely to me that some kids are having a good time messing with sailboats, than some sort of revenge or something.