This psychologist has a new theory for why orcas keep attacking boats

Live Science spoke with comparative psychologist Christian Frings to discuss a new theory for why orcas are attacking yachts.

Over the past six years, orcas have made headlines for a unique behavior: Some individuals have repeatedly damaged or destroyed rudders on boats. The behavior has prompted a wide range of explanations, including that it's playful, a form of revenge, a warning against getting too close to the pod, or even a type of cultural transmission, in which one orca observes another interacting with a boat and then imitates it.

But Christian Frings, a cognitive psychologist who studies how humans control their actions, thinks it could be deliberate.

While Frings, who is also chair of general psychology and methodology at Trier University in Germany, does not study orcas directly, he believes that theories developed to explain human behavior could provide insight into this orca behavior.…