Care about animals? Then you need to stop treating them like humans

Fernando Kaskais

Sep 2

A recent encounter between sailors and killer whales highlights the need for deeper understanding of the natural world.

By Victoria Gill

A French sailor named Lou told me recently about his frightening encounter with a group of orcas, or killer whales. The majestic marine mammals were behaving troublingly. Five of them approached and rammed into the hull of the yacht he was sailing, spinning it around repeatedly.

This whole incident lasted 80 minutes and resulted in the small sailing vessel's rudder being split in two. The orcas then appeared to play with the floating foam that leaked from the insides of the broken rudder, pushing it around with their noses.

In the shipyard, Lou explained to me: "It looked like the orcas were playing, and that they were training each other."

This is just one of a series of incidents that you might well have read or heard about. This is because a population of Iberian orcas in the Atlantic have, in the last few years, developed this strange habit of 'attacking' boats.

I thought Lou's account was remarkably thoughtful under the circumstances. He never used the word 'attack', only 'encounter'. Another sailor I spoke to described his experience as a "dance with my orca friends".

You may have seen headlines that have employed some alarming, emotional language to describe the behaviour of this particular population of marine mammals. The term 'attack' suggests an aggressive assault. Some reports have suggested that the animals, that move through one of the world's busiest waterways hunting for tuna, are seeking revenge on boats.

There is no shortage of evidence of marine mammals being harmed by boats – injured by propellors and by fishing gear or affected by the chronic noise from constant shipping activity that can affect their ability to feed and communicate.

But creating a narrative where these orcas are angry, vengeful or bent on teaching us humans in our fragile sailing boats a lesson is at best unwise and at worst dangerous. In doing that, we're telling a story in which humans are on one side of the battle and orcas are on the other.

Conflict between people and wildlife is not just the basis for an enticing headline. It is, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a serious threat to our efforts to co-exist with the natural world.

Researchers from Spanish conservation organisations have now asked sailors to submit videos of any encounters they have with the animals so they can study their behaviour and work out whether this risky new habit of theirs is spreading through the population.

Scientists in Tarifa, in the south of Spain, close to where many of these incidents have been reported, are also setting out to track the animals with GPS tags. This is more invasive research, but it is giving them real-time data about where the orcas are.

When I first reported on the Iberian killer whales' unusual new behaviour, I spoke to neuroscientist Lori Marino, president of the Whale Sanctuary Project, who is one of the few people to have seen inside the brain of a killer whale after scanning the brain of a deceased captive orca for a study back in 2004.

"Parts of their brains – like the limbic system that you can think of as the emotional processor – they share with us. So, they probably do experience anger, grief and joy," she says.

"But if we try to say that these social, intelligent, playful animals are solely good and peaceful – or solely bad and aggressive, we're turning them into caricatures."

We can't look inside of mind of a living orca, but we do know from studies of their behaviour, and their brains, that these are complex, intelligent animals with culture and deep familial bonds.

We have information and scientific tools at our disposal to find out how best to navigate this strange new situation. We can see signs of playfulness in their behaviour. And we can see that the survival of this specific population is directly linked to stocks of tuna in that region.

We could use that information to manage fisheries. We can even tag and track the animals (providing we're not harming them) so we can take on the responsibility of keeping our distance.

When I left Lou the sailor and his crew mates in the Spanish shipyard, all he wanted to know was where the orcas were most likely to be, so he could leave them in peace (and avoid any more damage to his boat).

While we can't understand the orcas' motivation and we certainly can't control their behaviour, we can use all that data to help keep ourselves, and our boats, a safe distance from them.

So, let's not cast wild animals as our enemies. We have enough problems co-existing with nature without turning a complex situation into a battle of us versus them.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/stop-imposing-human-qualities-animals?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=Tinkmore%2Fmagazine%2FPets,%20Animals%20%26%20Wildlife