In the opening sequence of the BBC’s original Blue Planet series of 2001, TV’s first real look at life within the world’s oceans, a pod of orca are shown hunting a grey whale and her calf. Over and over, the killer whales jump on the calf, pushing it under the waves, determined to drown it. Once it is finally dead, after a six-hour battle, they eat only its lower jaw and tongue.
I vividly remember watching this as a 10-year-old in 2001 and thinking: I wouldn’t like to take on a killer whale. Lately, however, their attention seems to have turned uncomfortably close to home. In the past few years, a pod of orcas has been ramming boats in the waters off south-west Europe at seemingly increasing rates. From 52 such “interactions” recorded in 2020, there were 197 in 2021, 207 last year and a steady number so far this summer. In three cases, the orcas have damaged boats so badly that they have sunk.
