Fr J Hackett
Well-Known Member
So to save the Tuna we should cull the Orca. Just saying.
Orca attack
- Thread starter Sailfree
- Start date
capnsensible
Well-Known Member
Cut out the middle man. Tinned orca.
newtothis
Well-Known Member
Tuna-friendly dolphin.
greeny
Well-Known Member
I can see you're new to this thread.
newtothis
Well-Known Member
Shoulda gone to Specsavers... I've been here since #178.
greeny
Well-Known Member
Funnily enough i was there 2 weeks ago. Very impressed after my previous bill from an independant of £400. I got 2 pairs of varifocals for £298. One for work one for best. 
Exit one very happy customer. Also they were available within a week, my previous pair were broken and unusable. Now i can spot the orca from distance.
Major_Clanger
Well-Known Member
Some of the views taken show, IMO, just how distanced we've become from the real world around us..... Several of you talking about "humans" and "animals" as if there's some defined and distinct difference. It makes me really sad.... We ARE animals. We're primates who happened to have developed beyond the other great apes who share 99% of our DNA genome. We share a fair percentage with Orcas as well.
I'm very far from being a tree-hugger, in some ways I'm the antithesis of one but I do believe we've forgotten our 'place' in the scheme of things. We control, by design or otherwise, every single living species on Earth.... Except ourselves. The planet is groaning under the weight of bloody people and we think it's our birth right to just plough-on ridding ourselves of anything that gets in our way.
I'm not dismissing these interactions but let's remember how infrequent they are - I've transited between Ouessant and Gib 17 times over the last four years in yachts between 34 and 65ft and I haven't even seen an Orca. Fin whales, dolphins, pilots and False Killers yes, but no Orcas. My point is that for every interaction, there are dozens of yachts that sail that area without issue. The MSM and even some of the yachting press are blowing it out of all proportion.
We sail for fun. We're not in our natural environment. We're NOT the apex species when we're at sea. Those who advocate culling these animals need to learn and remember that.
We - the international sailing community - need to find an answer. It's not incumbent upon individual countries to look for a solution, we must do it. I always carry a couple of commercial pingers that I bought in the fishing harbour at Lagos. I don't know if they're effective but I know one yacht skipper who had cause to use them and the Orca left immediately and didn't return. I also know two boats who've had their rudders destroyed and neither carried any electronic deterrents. I'd suggest there should be further research in to pingers. Not bangers and definitely not bang-sticks. At worse they'll just annoy the animals and possibly make them attack and remember, if they really wanted to they could stove-in any GRP or wooden hull.
I don't pretend to know what the answer is but we need to stop any talk of culling these animals. Estimates give a global population of only 50,000 Orcas with some sub-populations listed as endangered - including 'our' one. There are 8.14 billion Humans. Anyone who sanctions killing these animals so that they can go yachting without having to deal with anything in the water doesn't, IMO, deserve to be on it.
I'm very far from being a tree-hugger, in some ways I'm the antithesis of one but I do believe we've forgotten our 'place' in the scheme of things. We control, by design or otherwise, every single living species on Earth.... Except ourselves. The planet is groaning under the weight of bloody people and we think it's our birth right to just plough-on ridding ourselves of anything that gets in our way.
I'm not dismissing these interactions but let's remember how infrequent they are - I've transited between Ouessant and Gib 17 times over the last four years in yachts between 34 and 65ft and I haven't even seen an Orca. Fin whales, dolphins, pilots and False Killers yes, but no Orcas. My point is that for every interaction, there are dozens of yachts that sail that area without issue. The MSM and even some of the yachting press are blowing it out of all proportion.
We sail for fun. We're not in our natural environment. We're NOT the apex species when we're at sea. Those who advocate culling these animals need to learn and remember that.
We - the international sailing community - need to find an answer. It's not incumbent upon individual countries to look for a solution, we must do it. I always carry a couple of commercial pingers that I bought in the fishing harbour at Lagos. I don't know if they're effective but I know one yacht skipper who had cause to use them and the Orca left immediately and didn't return. I also know two boats who've had their rudders destroyed and neither carried any electronic deterrents. I'd suggest there should be further research in to pingers. Not bangers and definitely not bang-sticks. At worse they'll just annoy the animals and possibly make them attack and remember, if they really wanted to they could stove-in any GRP or wooden hull.
I don't pretend to know what the answer is but we need to stop any talk of culling these animals. Estimates give a global population of only 50,000 Orcas with some sub-populations listed as endangered - including 'our' one. There are 8.14 billion Humans. Anyone who sanctions killing these animals so that they can go yachting without having to deal with anything in the water doesn't, IMO, deserve to be on it.
billskip
Well-Known Member
Only in our opinion.....
newtothis
Well-Known Member
There is only one me, and I'd see orca-burgers at McDonalds before I put a big dolphin above me on the evolutionary tree.
Major_Clanger
Well-Known Member
In which case, if you advocate killing the pods in question, you have no right to be afloat. It has nothing to do with placing them higher up the tree, it's about finding an answer that doesn't involve destroying a small and declining population. And since we are at the top of the tree, it should be incumbent on us to use that position responsibly.
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Mister E
Well-Known Member
Sir sir I know the answer pick me pick me.
Major_Clanger
Well-Known Member
???
Mister E
Well-Known Member
Stop the boatyards paying them so that the yard gets more business.
Major_Clanger
Well-Known Member
Funnily enough a pal of mine's boat is ashore in Portugal currently after Orcas damaged its rudder. They've got him by the short and curlies - the yard prices are astronomical. He reckons it'll be over 10,000 Euros by the time he's back in the water.
Thinking about it, it's another pressing reason why we have to find an answer - if we don't then insurance premiums will skyrocket or, even worse, they just won't insure yachts in open water anymore.
The Coastguard didn't charge them for towing them in though, which was kind as they are allowed to.
Mister E
Well-Known Member
Simple solution don't sail in the area where they operate.
Graham376
Well-Known Member
Not so simple for those of us who are based in the area, we are just one out of the hundreds of thousands of boats based from Gib to Brittany.
Although it's a worry and we tend to sail closer to shore than previously, when looking at the number of attacks compared to the numbers out and about sailing, only a very tiny percentage have had problems. Over the last couple of years, I'm certain far more boats have been damaged or sunk from other causes.
seeSimon
Well-Known Member
Perhaps it may not be a simple as that..."Orcas" have recently reported off the Isles of Scilly.
Let's hope they're not related to the damaging kind?
Goldie
Well-Known Member
Apparently, it’s an unrelated pod with no history of attacking boats.
Thresher
Well-Known Member
I don't think it is a tiny percentage. Looking at Orcas.pt, there have been 14 attacks off the west coast of Spain and Portugal in the last 20 days and this is not even Orca season.
Graham376
Well-Known Member
14 sounds a lot (too many) but, but how many boats do you think would have been out during the same period along the coasts of Spain and Portugal, without having been attacked? The Algarve coast alone has several thousand berths and moorings and it's only 130 miles long.