A ship captain attacked by an orca is worried boaters are going to start shooting killer whales

• Orcas made headlines recently after pods attacked multiple ships off the coast of Spain.
• But one ship captain said killer whales have more to fear from us than we have to fear from them.

A ship captain harassed by a pod of orcas last month said he's worried that headlines about recent killer whale attacks will lead boaters to start shooting the marine mammals.

"I am very concerned about the near future for these beasts and I think we have a huge responsibility to protect these animals," Sébastien Destremau told Newsweek. "The problem we have is that media are emphasizing the aggression and so people are getting armed. They're getting a shotgun onboard their boat."

Destremau previously said his sailing yacht was ambushed in late May by a pod of about 20 orcas, who started to "systematically attack our rudder."

It was the latest aggression from killer whales off the Iberian peninsula. Earlier in May, a squad of three orcas sank a sailboat, thrashing its rudder and ramming it at full force. That was the third time a killer whale sank a ship since 2020.

A researcher suggested that the attacks could be the work of a traumatized female orca named White Gladis, who could be teaching others how to ram boats, LiveScience reported.

But Destremau doesn't buy that theory.

"They could crush the boat in a heartbeat if they wanted to," he told Newsweek. "But they were not aggressive, they're not wanting to have a piece of you."

Destremau said the orca were blowing bubbles as they bumped his ship around. Still, he was worried the massive marine mammals might do damage to the vessel, putting his crew in danger.

"The shocks were really hard and really strong, they were really going for it," he told Newsweek.

Most interactions between orcas and humans are harmless and there haven't been any reported fatalities caused by attacks from the ocean predator in the wild. Staying out of the water if approached by an orca is the best way to stay safe, experts previously told Insider.

Destremau urged sailors not to take rash action against the sea giants, Newsweek reported.

"It's their world. It's not ours," Destremau said.