Orca rams boat… 2,000 miles from the prior killer whale attacks

As we've posted, orcas have recently been attacking boats in Portugese and Spanish waters. Last week though, an orca rammed a yacht off the Scottish coast, more than 2,000 miles from the previous incidents.

From LiveScience:

The behavior appears to be spreading through social learning, with orcas imitating each other and reproducing acts they deem advantageous or interesting in some way, Alfredo López Fernandez, a biologist and representative of the Grupo de Trabajo Orca Atlántica, or Atlantic Orca Working Group (GTOA), previously told Live Science[…]

"It's possible that this 'fad' is leapfrogging through the various pods/communities," Conor Ryan, a scientific adviser to the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust, told The Guardian.