Orca attacks on boats appear to be 'leapfrogging' across oceans as a yacht is rammed by killer whale north of Scotland

• An orca repeatedly rammed a yacht in the Shetland Islands, a sailor told the Guardian.
• The attack follows a series of orca incidents around the Iberian peninsula.

An orca attacked a yacht off the Shetland Islands coast in the North Sea earlier this week, as the aggressive incidents involving killer whales show signs that it could be spreading across the oceans.

Previous orca attacks on boats occurred 3,000 miles away, off the coasts of Portugal and Spain.

Dr. Wim Rutten was sailing from Lerwick, Shetland, an island 400 miles off the north coast of Scotland, to Bergen, Norway, on Monday when an orca suddenly appeared and rammed the stern of his seven-ton yacht, The Guardian reported.

Rutten told The Guardian that the orca repeatedly hit the ship, sending "soft shocks" through the hull. It is the first known orca attack on a boat in the North Sea.

The 72-year-old Dutch physicist, an experienced sailor, said he had heard about orca incidents around Portugal, adding that he found the loud breathing of the orca the "most frightening."

He said the animal kept behind the boat, disappeared, but then "came back at fast speed, twice or thrice, and circled a bit."

"Maybe he just wanted to play. Or look me in the eyes. Or to get rid of the fishing line," he added.

It seems the trend has now spread further, with one expert studying orca pods off the Scottish coast telling The Guardian that it was feasible that North Sea orcas were learning from southern orca populations.

"It's possible that this 'fad' is leapfrogging through the various pods/communities," Dr. Conor Ryan, a scientific adviser to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, told The Guardian.

Similar behavior has been regularly seen in killer whales off the coast of the Iberian peninsula, and experts say orca interactions with vessels have been increasing since 2020, Insider previously reported.

While many boat interactions with orcas in the area have been harmless, killer whales have increasingly rammed and even sank boats.

The exact reason behind the behavior remains unclear, but some experts believe that a traumatized female orca called White Gladis may be behind the trend, with other killer whales learning and imitating the aggressive behavior from her.

The marine animals are "so highly intelligent" they can learn from each other very quickly, John Hargrove, a former SeaWorld orca trainer, also said recently while predicting that the attacks would continue escalating.

The rising number of incidents has left researchers concerned for sailors' safety and the dwindling orca population around the Iberian peninsula.