Sailors have created a shared heavy metal playlist on Spotify to blast at orcas threatening their boats
- Sailors have been sharing a heavy metal Spotify playlist they made to deter orca attacks.
- One sailor tried blasting the music from underwater speakers at a pack of the marine mammals.
Some sailors are beginning to take their ongoing battle against marauding orcas up a notch: blasting heavy metal music to try to scare away the marine mammals.
Florian Rutsch, a German sailor who operates a chartered catamaran off the coast of the Iberian Peninsula, told The New York Times that he's been scouring online sailors' forums for ideas on how to stop killer whales from attacking his boat.
Rutsch heard through the grapevine that blaring heavy metal music from underwater speakers might deter the apex predators — and the idea even came with a shared Spotify playlist, called 'Metal for Orcas,' specially curated by other sailors, The New York Times reported.
The playlist includes songs aptly titled "The Blood of Power," "Infinite Terror," "Stretched and Devoured," and "Exceptionally Sadistic."
During an encounter one day in November, Rutsch and his crew tried out the musical trick on a gang of orcas, he told the Times. But, the determined dolphins succeeded anyway, striking the boat's rudders and disabling its steering, the outlet reported.
Rutsch's boat had to be towed away by Spanish authorities who came to his rescue, according to the Times.
Rutsch's encounter is just one of a spate of recent incidents involving orcas attacking boats, especially off the coasts of Spain and Portugal — a phenomenon that's been called the "orca uprising."
There have been hundreds of aggressive orca encounters reported since 2020, but some experts believe that one disgruntled orca named White Gladis could be behind this summer's surge in incidents near the Strait of Gibraltar.
One man who started a website that tracks orca attacks even estimates that there's at least one encounter every day.
Even if orcas did initially hate heavy metal, with their uncanny ability to communicate and adapt, they may have already gotten used to the rockin' tunes.