The orcas that this summer have contacted small sailboats in the Strait - at least 69 occasions, of which 30 needed to lose the rudder - have been the subject of attacks and harponaces, as shown by photos and videos provided by a tracker of Orcas For educational and scientific purposes that work for tourism companies.
These contacts have caused that the maritime captaincy of Cádiz has forbidden sailboats from up to fifteen meters at the Barbate Ensenada (Cádiz) until September 7 to avoid risk situations, since cetaceans seem to have specialized in breaking the rudder of These vessels, leaving them drifting, with the consequent risks.
Director since 2014 of the Cetacean and Sea Classroom Interpretation Center of Tarifa (CICAM), Francisco Gil, Boat Pattern, Diving Professor and Underwater Chamber Operator, has been working as a tracker and has assured Efe that until now Unpublished behavior of the orcas, animals to which it defines as extraordinarily intelligent and empathic, is an answer to the attacks they suffered last summer and have continued suffering this summer.
Collaborator of several university centers of Marine Biology, Oceanography and Marine Sciences, Gil has dived along with all the species of cetaceans of the Strait until the prohibition of this activity in 2007, and has made immersion with the Orcas for seven years, so that Meet the most outstanding members of the "clan" of these whales that hunt tuna in the Strait.
In his daily outings in search of cetaceans he checked last year that there were orcas with wounds, with scars, and some that had been groponed with a bite (kind of spear) still was nailed, episodes he has assured that they have repeated this summer .
In addition to surface photos, Gil preserves submarine photos -nce with permission from the Ministry of Ecological Transition and carried out by Rafael Fernández Kno Be contacted by cetaceans respond to them using the bite and trying to repel them with other equally aggressive means - images that have been published on the Internet.
The orcas, who can get to weigh up to five tons and a half, do not attack the sailboats, which could easily make shipwrecked because, according to Gil, "they are very lists and know that we can kill them."
That is why the contacts that this summer have become so frequent and that until last year practically had not been given, interprets them as "a protest" of animals.
Orcas have only contacted small sailboats, who carry the helix in front and very separate from the helm, which allows them to bite it without risk and to disable the boats-from there that the recommendations of maritime salvage, in case of contact with orcas, are to leave The still rudder and aligned with the boat's helmet, stop the boat folding sails and stopping the machine and not giving up overboard or screaming.
According to Gil, when last year he became an end to the confinement by the VOCID-19, numerous sailboats left with permission to carry out the sport fishing of tuna and like the orcas, from the years of the scarcity of tuna, whose banks are now recovered, They learned to run them out of the sedality, received these attacks from the crew of some sports sailboats.
Historically, Gil has insisted, the orcas and men have lived and have even collaborated in the fishing of tuna, since each spring, when the tuna banks reach the Mediterranean, the killer cornered them and push them towards the traditional gaditanas almadrabas that They fish through this millenary art.
The grill nothing at 50 kilometers per hour and tuna can do it at 90, so cetacean, to hunt them, is organized into groups that harass them and the fence.
Francisco Gil has regretted that in a period of abundance of tuna, these facts are being produced and he has considered that fishing quotas should be reviewed to expand those who have the almadrabas and other traditional arts of the Comarca fishermen.
The Iberian Orca, cataloged in danger of extinction, currently has the Strait, five groups with an estimated total of about fifty members.
Date Of Update: 04 September 2021, 23:11
