Orca’s incredible JAWS-like attacks on boats…and this time it’s personal

JAWS (1975) saw a great white shark attacking and sinking Quint’s iconic boat, Orca, but now its namesakes, Orca killer whales, have been sinking boats and the fear is that this is only the beginning…and to quote the tagline of JAWS the Revenge (1987), this time it’s personal!

Experts believe that a female Orca named White Gladis suffered a "critical moment of agony" — by which they mean a boat accident (but not Jack the Ripper) or entrapment during illegal fishing — that has traumatised that Orca, resulting in it seeking revenge on other boats.

To paraphrase Dr Elkins in JAWS 2 (1978) when she speaks to Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), sharks don’t take things personally, Mr Brody, but killer whales sure do.

And so far, three boats have already been sunk off Europe's Iberian Peninsula and now that behaviour is spreading among the killer whale population, with witnesses reporting that mums have been passing on boat ramming skills to their calfs.

The Orcas are doing this on purpose – orca-chestrated if you will - but with three sinkings the worry is that these Orca and boat encounters are escalating and it will only be a matter of time before a boat occupant is seriously injured or drowns as a result.

Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist at the University of Aveiro in Portugal and representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica (Atlantic Orca Working Group), told Live Science: "In more than 500 interaction events recorded since 2020 there are three sunken ships. We estimate that killer whales only touch one ship out of every hundred that sail through a location."

So how are they attacking the boats? The Orcas have been repeatedly seen approaching from the stern to take out the rudder, only losing interest once they have successfully stopped the boat. Another theory suggests that this could be just a game and a phase which Orcas are going through.

"There were two smaller and one larger orca," skipper Werner Schaufelberger, whose boat was sunk by orcas on May 4 in the Strait of Gibraltar, recounted his experience to Yacht, adding: "The little ones shook the rudder at the back while the big one repeatedly backed up and rammed the ship with full force from the side."

"The two little orcas observed the bigger one's technique, with a slight run-up, they too slammed into the boat."

And now, video footage has emerged of a group of killer whales attacking a yacht, said to be led by White Gladis, putting a hole in its hull.

It could almost be something out of a pitch for a film, think JAWS with killer whales hunting in packs, which sounds a lot like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park (1993) meets the sharks from Deep Blue Sea (1999).

Not that we’ve not already had a JAWS with a killer whale film and book already, that was of course Orca the Killer Whale, which swam onto cinema screens back in 1977 and starred Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling and Bo Derek. It was directed my Michael Anderson, who many years earlier had directed a pre-JAWS Robert Shaw, who played Quint, in The Dam Busters.

The film may have opened with the Orca taking out a great white shark, the favour was returned in JAWS 2 with a dead killer whale washing up on an Amity Island beach, and we’ve all been waiting for the big screen Orca and great white rematch in the long-announced Alphas with Avatar’s Sam Worthington. Poster aside we’ve had very little updates, with it still thrashing around in development hell.

Perhaps this news and the release of this summer’s Meg 2: The Trench may resurrect interest in it?

It’s important to point out that although known as killer whales, no killer whale has attacked and killed a human in the wild, but great white sharks haven’t been quite so lucky, with several dead carcasses washing up on beaches minus their hearts and livers.

If it isn’t Orca the Killer Whale it is most likely Free Willy (think E.T. with a whale) that sticks in cinemagoers minds, and one boy’s bid to free him. The rumour that UK cinemas had to change the title because Willy in the UK is another word for penis, is completely unfounded by the way.

A killer whale also made an appearance in the SeaWorld set JAWS 3D (1983), and that location is also sadly where the most notable recent film appearance has been, in the documentary Blackfish, featuring the distressing and disturbing tale of the Orca Tilikum and the three people he killed, including SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau.

For now, the dorsal fin to fear cutting through the water isn’t that of the shark, but that of the killer whale. And if you are heading out onto the water, perhaps you might want to think about taking a bigger boat.

Words by Dean Newman

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