Sailors Learn the Hard Way That Orcas are the Crowdkillers of the Sea

Here’s a special note to sailors and fishermen looking to keep Orcas away from their boats: maybe don’t use metal to scare away the big corpse-paint colored water-based mammals. You’ll only encourage them to open up a pit on your ass.

Since 2020, news stories have begun circulating from the Atlantic Ocean near Portugal and Spain in sailors have begun blasting metal music underwater as a way to drive marine life — specificaly orcas (aka killer fucking whales) away from their boats. Makes sense right? Loud noises tend to scare off most animals — but it turns out they’re not dealing with just any animal…

According to a New York Times, catamaran captain Florian Rutsch said he and his crew were crossing the Strait of Gibraltar when his ship was attacked by orcas. At the time, the ship was blasting a “Metal for Orcas” playlist into the water in a bid to deter the whales and other sea life from coming too close. Unfortunately for him, the tactic only emboldened the vicious predators, as they disabled the ship by destroying its rudder. With the ship unable to steer, the crew had to be rescued and the boat was towed back to land by Spanish authorities.

And as a result, the Duplantier brothers of Gojira fame are somewhere right now feeling an immense sense of pride over this whole thing.

While speaking with Business Insider, Andrew Trites, the marine mammal research unit director at the University of British Columbia, suggested that the loud music might have actually had the opposite desired effect. Rather than force orcas away, Dying Fetus’ “The Blood of Power” and Aborted’s “Infinite Terror” might have actually acted as a sonic bullseye.

“Initially, the playing of loud sounds underwater might mask the signature sounds of sailboats — but ultimately, the whales would catch on and use it to more easily locate vessels playing it.”

Apparently people have forgotten that whales are intelligent as fuck. I mean, you ever watch a video of Orcas hunting sea lions? They’re basically water-based wolves that hunt in packs and use tactical thinking to corral and corner their prey. Of fucking course they were going to pick up on a pattern as simple as loud music = asshole boats that they can damage and even sink in some cases.

Some experts believe these boat attacks may be the result of the whales taking revenge after a female orca was hurt by a vessel. If that’s the case, you’ve got a buncha pissed off killer whales looking to inflict some damage. All blasting metal’s going to do is give them a brutal soundtrack for them to beat your ass to.

Or they could just be attacking the boats simply because it’s fun. Not sure which instance is worse….