Evidently killer whales have been sinking yachts off the coast of Spain since 2020, and although many have wanted to credit them with trying to take down the plutocracy, scientists suspect they just do it because it’s fun. Of course, those two things are not mutually exclusive. Whales have superb hearing and after a couple centuries of bonking boats and hearing AVAST, YE MATEYS it’s probably entertaining to hear [bonk] “I say, old chap, save the Glenfiddich!”

Scientists do have a theory why the boat-bonkings tend to happen in the spring and summer months. “That’s because the whales and boats are in the same area at the same time,” according to astute senior scientist Naomi Rose with Animal Welfare Institute. It makes sense. Whales are credited with superior intelligence but remote boat-smashing remains a cetacean dream.

They are not actually torpedoing the crafts, per se. They are bonking the rudders, whose movement has proved irresistible to bored young orcas. On occasion they have been able to bonk one right off, and then they can play with it. See how long they can keep it off the ocean floor, for instance. If they manage to sink the vessel, they can do the same thing with billionaires, who can remain afloat for only so long. It’s no end of fun.

Orcas are related to sperm whales and nobody wants to find out what kind of fun they’re having.

Still, the notion that orcas were targeting the wealthy “took the internet by storm in 2023, with ‘Sink the rich’ mugs and T-shirts featuring killer whales on them proliferating.” I have not personally seen the T-shirts with the proliferating whales. Sounds like more of a sperm whale deal. Still, scientists insist the whales are fooling around with rudders because they are “being enriched by the experience.” Especially if they can knock out some of that Glenfiddich.

More evidence suggests this is playtime for killer whales. Only about a third of the available whales have been seen to engage in actual rudder-ramming, but scientists have taken note of a secondary population of orcas playing the over-under in boats sunk, or scoring ten points per billionaire with two-point deductions for Moroccan fishermen, with the occasional parlay involving side bets about individual players and their Butting Averages or Rudders Butted In. Without a doubt there are a few all-stars in the bunch; a twenty-year-old prospect from the North Atlantic League is said to be a real rudder-fucker.

Way back in 1987, a group of orcas in the Pacific Northwest were observed to be wearing dead salmon hats for fun. It was perhaps a form of fashion statement and although it began with a single whale and was quickly copied by the adolescents in the pod, eventually all the whales were showing up with salmon millinery. Once the old folks jump on a trend, though, it dies quickly. After six weeks the kids were all “That’s so last month” and nobody saw orcas wearing dead salmon hats after that, until 2022, when the nostalgia kicked in.

The propensity of orcas to play is considered another sign of their formidable intelligence. Orcas have the most wrinkled brains in the world. The more folded-up a brain is, the higher is its surface-to-volume ratio, allowing more neurons to be packed into a small space, and the closer neurons can get to each other. Any time you can rub two thoughts together you’ve got a better chance of coming up with something worthwhile, although sometimes it’s just a reality show. The superior elaboration of the killer-whale insular cortex is associated with compassion, empathy, and self-awareness. Donald Trump would probably be proud to learn his brain was super smooth, the smoothest, like nobody’s ever seen before. Smooth as his scalp.

Thanks to Friend Of Pootie Catherine Davis for the news tip.