A humpback whale was filmed breaching before smashing on top of a boat in terrifying footage captured off the New Hampshire coast.
Footage captures the enormous whale emerging from the water before smashing onto the vessel. Within seconds pair of fishermen were tossed into the chilly Atlantic sea in what viewers said was an example of another "p****d off whale". The clip is captured by another individual on a nearby boat, before the driver quickly prepares to turn around.
Former NHL player Ryan Whitney wrote on X: "There is a p****d off whale patrolling the waters of Portsmouth NH today. Head on swivel if you’re out there,” former NHL player Ryan Whitney. Nobody was injured during the incident and one of several other fishing boats came to their rescue, according to the US Coast Guard said.
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Earlier this year killer whales were behind series of disturbing attacks on boats in European seas. Since 2020, 673 boats were rammed by orcas off the coast of Europe's Iberian Peninsula. It got so bad that the Spanish and Portuguese governments tasked experts with finding out why the whales were targeting the rudders of the ships and how to get them to stop.
They believe they've found the answer to the first of those questions — many of the ramming incidents were the result of teen whales simply playing around, the result of a behavioural "fad".
A report written by marine biologist and killer whale expert Alex Zerbini — chair of the scientific committee at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and a member of the working group compiled by the Spanish and Portuguese governments — and other members of the working group explains the psychology behind killer whale behaviour and details why the whales might have resorted to attacking ship rudders.
According to the paper, titled "Workshop Report — Interactions between Iberian Killer Whales and Vessels: Management Recommendations", killer whales learn much of their behaviours through social learning, and they become what the scientists refer to as "cultural traditions".
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"Different populations often have distinct dietary specialisations that are maintained by cultural transmission, and these 'ecotypes' typically have a variety of persistent behavioural traditions that are related to their divergent foraging," the authors wrote. "Some populations may also develop unusual and temporary behavioural 'fads' and other idiosyncrasies that do not appear to serve any obvious adaptive purpose. Understanding the recent boat interactions by Iberian killer whales may benefit from an examination of such ephemeral traditions in other well-studied killer whale populations."
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