White Gladis was thought to be pregnant when she first started ramming into boats, and has even taken her newborn calf on terror expeditions.
The matriarch belongs to a pod of killer whales that have been attacking boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal since the summer of 2020.
The so-called “orca revolt,” believed to have been initiated by White Gladis, has seen the species ram and circle ships before ripping their rudders free.
Now scientists believe the orca was pregnant all along and since the gestation period of orcas is 15 to 18 months, Gladis is believed to have given birth in 2021.
But instead of settling into motherhood, she continued her destructive efforts and took her calf with her.
Researchers believe the infamous female killer whale named White Gladis (pictured) was pregnant when she began wrecking boats
Two killer whales emerge from the water off Gibraltar in May. The group of whales and their gang leader eventually lost interest, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage
Commenting on her behavior, Mónica González, a marine biologist at the Coordinator for the Study of Marine Mammals, said at a webinar“She went to the boats with this calf, so she preferred to hold back the boats rather than protect her baby.”
Surprisingly, killer whales typically care for newborn calves for at least two years after they are born, providing security and nourishment until they learn to hunt.
According to Robert Pitman, a marine biologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, orca females give birth to an average of five calves in their lifetime and are fiercely protective of each.
Killer whales are usually ‘fiercely’ protective of their young – White Gladis’ behavior has experts baffled when she endangered her calf
The exact motive of her attacks remains unknown, but her peculiar behavior has led to expert theories – the most common being that she behaves in response to a traumatic event.
Gonzalez said on the webinar, “It was more important to stop the boats” than to protect her calf, leading experts to believe that “something bad happened” to the mammal and that Gladis may have experienced a traumatic event involving a sailboat.
Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal who is a representative of the Atlantic Orca Working Group, told Live Science: “The traumatized orca is the one that caused this behavior of physical contact with the boat.”
A “critical moment of pain” made White Gladis aggressive toward boats — and this is now being learned and copied by other killer whales, the biologist told Live Science.
It appears that White Gladis has become a trailblazer for other enraged orcas, as the Atlantic Orca Working Group has seen a 298% increase in orca-boat interactions between 2020 and 2023.
Consequently, in recent years three boats have capsized due to encounters with killer whales and more than 100 have been damaged.
Like humans, killer whales pass on knowledge from one generation to the next. It is certainly possible that White Gladis, the leader of her family, taught her calf and others in the pod how to damage ships in what she believed to be a protective action.
It’s likely that other orcas, especially younger mammals, display this behavior out of curiosity or playfulness — “like a kid playing with a soccer ball in the kitchen and smashing a window” — but Gonzalez explained that adults are more likely to interact with the orcas. to go. boats from trauma.
The orcas show no signs of slowing down and on June 22, three orcas attacked a boat taking part in a long yacht race near the Strait of Gibraltar. Fortunately, the ship was not damaged and the race resumed after the encounter.
A few days later, another boat was attacked off the coast of southern Portugal. The boat’s captain, Troy Torres, responded to a Facebook post about the encounter.
On the same day, a catamaran off Culatra Island was attacked by six killer whales for 50 minutes, Bertrand d’Enquin, who was on the boat, wrote in a Facebook post.
He said, “An orca returned and banged the rudder one last time, as if to confirm it was broken. It was a harrowing experience.’
Some experts are now worried about how the game will end, Deborah Giles, Wild Orca’s science and research director, said: “I’m concerned that people are taking the situation into their own hands and using deadly or harmful tactics to try and, you know, stop the whales or at least, you know, stop an attack right now.’
Killer whale attack survivor shares his experience on Facebook, after meeting the pod for nearly 50 minutes