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Comment by ZeljkoS | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, a few internet sources say English name "killer whale" is miss-translation of Spanish "asesina de ballenas," which literally means "whale killer":

https://www.surfertoday.com/environment/what-is-a-killer-wha...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Awwducational/comments/1tryxl/the_n...

Take that with a grain of salt, as I couldn't find a reliable source.

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Humorously, the source in one of the Reddit comments is quoting a source linked from the Spanish language wiki page for Orcas which cites, as justification, a 2007 version of the English language wikipedia page for Orcas.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070630040841/http://animals.ab...

Ah the circle of life, "beautiful"

Causal loop in the wild?

That's funny, in modern spanish I've only ever heard "ballena asesina" (instead of "asesina de ballena") which translates to killer whale. Maybe it went full circle and got translated back from english?

Or maybe the origin story is just bogus

It sort of makes sense. As far as I know there are almost no records of orcas going after people.

But they are increasingly attacking boats:

https://www.yachtingworld.com/cruising/orca-attacks-rudder-l...

I was quite surprised when I saw the first reports of that and find them equally faszinating and terrifying. I am wondering, what started this behavior by the Orcas and whether this is in any way connected to them increasingly killing other whales.

It is probably way to naive to assume that they mistake boats for prey as they are highly intelligent animals. They seem to know what fishing boats are and are known to steal fishes from long lines.

These attacks seem to primarily target the rudders. Of course this is the one part of the boat they can easily damage, most hulls should be able to withstand the attacks better. Also, attacking the fins is probably very universal, when you are attacking another aquatic animal. I wonder, how much the Orcas can understand the extend to which boats depend on the rudders though.

There's a number of theories. The drop in food along the Portugese/Spanish Atlantic cost. Some of the attacking Orcas also have visible scars caused by boats and as these attacks increased after the Covid lockdowns it could have realized that the underwater noise before was caused by ships and are angry when shipping started again:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/13/the-tale...

"What explains the new behaviour? Was there reduced noise during the Covid lockdown? Selling says yes. “No big game fishing, no whale watching or sailing boats, no fast ferries, fewer merchant ships.” He’s intrigued by the idea that the orca had two months with reduced noise – “Something most of them probably never experienced before” – and considers the possibility they felt angry as the noise restarted"

If it is the noise, where all attacked ships running under engine or where some of them sailing? The sailing boats wouldn't make any especial noise. Unless the Orcas developed a sudden hate for all boats.

There are also interesting reports from the whaling era where killer whales would heard Target species to the whaling ships in reward for voice pieces of meat

Assassin of Whales

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