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ARCHIVED - Three boats rescued in Cádiz after killer whale encounters
The boats, off the coast of Barbate in Cádiz, suffered rudder-damage caused by the orcas
Maritime Rescue services in Cádiz were called to assist three different boats off the Barbate coast on Wednesday (August 4) after killer whales damaged the vessels.
The first incident took place at 2.50pm, when the ‘Stella Maris’ vessel contacted the Maritime Rescue services asking to be towed back to the port, as the rudder had been damaged by the animal.
At around 3.00pm, the sailboat ‘El Tazar’ reported the same issue, although this boat did not need to be towed back to shore.
The first two cases took place around 1.5 miles off the coast of the Atlantera urbaniSation, in the municipality of Tarifa, while the third incident, reported at 6.45pm, took place 2.5 miles away from Faro de Camarinal, also in the municipality of Tarifa.
The third boat also reported a damaged rudder after an encounter with a killer whale and Maritime Rescue towed the sailboat, ‘Le Veteran’, back to Barbate.
A pod of four killer whales attacked a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar in mid-July and it is thought that the increasingly common attacks and sightings of killer whales could be due to an increase in bluefin tuna in the western Mediterranean, leading the whales to stray from their usual hunting grounds.
Killer whales, or orcas, can reach lengths of up to eight metres and can weigh up to six tonnes and are widely recognised as one of the world’s most powerful predators.
IMAGE: Salvamento Marítimo
