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Experts, Residents Delighted By Migration of Killer Whales From Iceland to Italy

A female killer whale and her newborn calf. Photo: Reuters
A female killer whale and her newborn calf. Photo: Reuters
    London, Rome- Asharq Al-Awsat
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Experts, Residents Delighted By Migration of Killer Whales From Iceland to Italy

A female killer whale and her newborn calf. Photo: Reuters
A female killer whale and her newborn calf. Photo: Reuters

Three killer whales have been spotted in the sea that separates the boot of Italy from the Mediterranean island of Sicily, in the first such sighting in the narrow straits, Reuters reported.

Marine biologists believe they are the same group that originally came from Iceland and was seen off the coast of northwestern Italy earlier this month. Simone Vartuli, a 25-year-old fisherman, saw the fins of the killer whales emerge from the water on Friday and shot a video of the animals swimming alongside his boat.

"I moved forward until we almost touched them... Having them here in the Messina Strait was the best thing in my life," he told Reuters TV on Monday.

Gianmarco Arena, who was with Vartuli when they saw the large mammals, said he felt "very scared to begin with. That animal is twice the size of my boat." A pod of five killer whales, or orcas, arrived off the port of Genoa, in northern Italy, at the start of December, and marine biologists soon identified them as originating from Iceland more than 5,200 km away.

"This is the first-ever record of orcas migrating between Iceland and Italy in killer whale research history, and, we believe, at over 5,200 km, one of the longest migration routes ever recorded in the world to date," the Orca Guardians association in Iceland said.

Danny Groves of Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a global charity dedicated to the protection of cetaceans, said: "This is a remarkable story and a highly unusual event. In fact, this is believed to be the longest known migration of an orca pod."

"Why, is not clear. These orcas are usually summer residents in Iceland. Italy might be a one-off or they may have done this before. But it has never been witnessed or documented until now," he added.

The pod originally included a calf believed to be about a year old, which died in the seas off Genoa. A video released by the coastguard showed the mother trying to carry her dead calf before finally abandoning the body after several days.

Clara Monaco, a marine biologist and the scientific director of the Marecamp association, said: "The probability that the orcas in Messina are the same as the ones spotted in Genoa is high, but we would need some clear pictures to be sure."

Genoa is some 800 km from the Straits of Messina.

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Venice Is Sinking… But Italian Engineer Suggests Plan to Lift the City

Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)
Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)
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Venice Is Sinking… But Italian Engineer Suggests Plan to Lift the City

Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)
Boats sail on a canal as flags of EU, Italy and Venice fly at half-mast at the building of Veneto Regional Council to pay tribute to the late Pope Francis in Venice on April 22, 2025. (Photo by Sergei GAPON / AFP)

It’s the “floating city” but also the sinking city. In the past century, Venice has subsided by around 25 centimeters, or nearly 10 inches, CNN reported.

Meanwhile, the average sea level in Venice has risen nearly a foot since 1900.

It’s a tortuous pairing that means one thing: Not just regular flooding, but an inexorable slump of this most beloved of cities into the watery depths of its famous lagoon.

For visitors, its precarious status is part of the attraction of Venice — a need to visit now before it’s too late, a symbol that humanity cannot win against the power of nature.

For Venetians, the city’s island location has for centuries provided safety against invasion, but also challenges.

Tides have got ever higher and more frequent as the climate crisis intensifies. And the city sinks around two millimeters a year due to regular subsidence.

But what if you could just... raise the city? It sounds like science fiction. In fact it’s the idea of a highly respected engineer who thinks it could be the key to saving Venice.

While the Italian government is currently spending millions of euros each year raising flood barriers to block exceptionally high tides from entering the lagoon, Pietro Teatini, associate professor in hydrology and hydraulic engineering at the nearby University of Padua, says that pumping water into the earth deep below the city would raise the seabed on which it sits, pushing Venice skyward.

By raising the level of the city by 30 centimeters (just under 12 inches), Teatini believes that he could gift Venice two or three decades — during which time the city could work out a permanent way to fight the rising tides.

“We can say we have in front of us 50 years [including the lifespan of the MOSE] to develop a new strategy,” he says, according to CNN. “We have to develop a much more drastic project.”