This Whale Has Something to Say

Remember the orca revolt? Late last spring, media outlets began reporting that a group of orca whales were ramming seacraft near the Strait of Gibraltar. Although most encounters ended without incident, a number of boats were damaged. Three sank from the attacks. The phenomenon went viral, especially after more than one observer suggested that the attacks appeared to be coordinated. “Experts suspect,” a reporter for the website Live Science wrote, that a female orca, which researchers had dubbed “White Gladis,” “suffered a ‘critical moment of agony’—a collision with a boat or entrapment during illegal fishing—that flipped a behavioral switch.” Possibly, she was pregnant. In the aftermath of such a trauma, it was conjectured, she may have initiated an orcan resistance, vengeance as open-ocean passion play.