Blaring death metal wards off killer whale attacks on sailors

Publish date: 2024-05-03

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Cautious seafarers are rocking the boat so orcas won’t.

As killer whales continue to target boats off Spain and Portugal, some enterprising sailors have devised an unlikely way to keep Free Willy at bay — by blasting heavy metal music across the water.

The unlikely alleged orca deterrent surfaced recently in the Facebook group “Orca Attack Reports,” which is dedicated to reporting instances of whale-on-human piracy.

While killer whale attacks on vessels have been documented since 2020, run-ins have increased in both frequency and ferocity with Shamus sending several boats to the bottom of the sea of late.

In the most recent incident on October 31, a pod of killer whales brutally scuttled a Polish yacht off the coast of Morocco following a 45-minute attack.

So, like the intrepid shark-hunters in “Jaws,” besieged seafarers have been resorting to unlikely measures to keep these boat-ramming behemoths at bay, which they shared among the aforementioned group’s nearly 60,000 followers.

These defense tactics entailed everything from using airhorns and putting sand in the water to pushing orca noses with the ship rudders, CBS reported.

“When we had an interaction last year, I’m pretty sure that rattling the hull by playing full-volume east European thrash metal, was the game changer,” recalled one sailor on Facebook. “We also went astern. They made three approaches and left after 5 minutes without doing any damage.. which was 2 or 3 minutes into the music. Good luck.” Greg Blackburn / SWNS

“Any movement that makes that action uncomfortable for them will deter them,” one poster declared while describing the latter Free Willy repellent. “I just waggled the helm pretty violently so they would not want to put their noses there. Worked instantly and they got bored quick!” 

Perhaps the most unique revelation to surface was that Shamu is apparently not a fan of heavy metal.

This came to light when a poster picked the group’s brain on how to fend off orcas while voyaging from Málaga to the Canary Islands.

“When we had an interaction last year, I’m pretty sure that rattling the hull by playing full volume East European thrash metal [a subgenre of heavy metal], was the game changer,” recalled one respondent in the comments. “We also went astern. They made three approaches and left after 5 [minutes] without doing any damage.. which was 2 or 3 minutes into the music. Good luck.”

In other words, sick riffs apparently save ships.

The Polish Vader Group celebrates its 40th anniversary in Wroclaw. ZUMAPRESS.com

Though before setting sail on the high seas blasting Megadeath, people should know that this alleged metal trick doesn’t work for everyone.

In an interview with the New York Times, Sailor Florian Rutsch recounted an ill-fated orca encounter in November, during which he tried to blare a Spotify playlist called “Metal for Orcas” through an underwater speaker.

This subaquatic sensory overload attempt backfired after the blubbery buccaneers attacked his vessel’s rudder, after which the crew had to be rescued by Spanish authorities. 

No word as to whether he stumbled upon a unique pod of hard rock-loving whales.

Unfortunately, scientists are still a long way from deducing why orcas — which feed on fish and marine mammals — are attacking boats in the first place.

Some speculate that these could be copycat revenge attacks sparked by an incident where an orca matriarch was rammed by the boat.

Orca attacks on boats have ramped up in the past few years. Stephen Bidwell / SWNS

Most frightening is this behavior seems to be passed on generationally, perhaps indicating that, like humans, the species possesses a propensity for vengeance.

Although some scientists postulate that the orcas’ behavior is more playful, akin to when killer whales in the Pacific Northwest were observed wearing salmon on their heads like fish fedoras.

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