Wildlife

Orca Attacks on Boats Spread

An orca has attacked a yacht off the coast of Scotland, U.K. — the first time this behavior has been recorded beyond Portuguese and Spanish waters. One expert believes it's a sign the boat-ramming behavior may have "leapfrogged" to a different orca population.

Iberian orcas, a small and endangered population of about 39 animals, have sunk three boats in the last 18 months and damaged over 100 more by ramming into boats and ripping off their rudders. Some experts think an adult female named White Gladis may have survived a traumatic event — such as a boat collision or entrapment in a fishing net — that flipped a behavioral switch and triggered the first attacks.

The behavior appears to be spreading through social learning, with orcas imitating each other and reproducing acts they deem advantageous or interesting in some way. Experts suspect the attacks are linked to human activities at sea. Fishing, noise pollution and boat traffic.

Mass Fish Die-Off

Climate change may have stimulated a plankton bloom that caused thousands of dead fish to wash up along a roughly 4 kilometer (2.5 mile) stretch of beach in Thailand’s southern Chumphon province on Thursday, an expert said. According to local authorities, plankton blooms happen once or twice a year and typically last two to three days.

This month, thousands of dead fish washed up on beaches in Texas, and experts are warning of algal blooms along the British coast as a result of rising sea temperatures.

In Southern California, hundreds of dolphins and sea lions have been washing up on beaches dead or sick, amid a toxic algal bloom. While California’s algal blooms were caused more by strong coastal upwelling than high temperatures, scientists say climate change likely to increase toxic algal blooms, as some thrive in warm water.

“Whether it’s Australia and places like the Great Barrier Reef or even places around England which are experiencing quite bad marine heatwaves at the moment, it’s really going to be detrimental to those local ecosystems,” said Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate scientist with the University of New South Wales in Australia.