Great white sharks have been strangely absent off the coast of South Africa in recent years, with suspicions for their decline in numbers falling onto that other most notorious oceanic predator, the orca.
No one has ever caught Starboard in direct battle with a great white shark before, but circumstantial evidence suggests he and another male orca, named Port, are the likely killers of other local shark species. These two whales often frequent shark hotspots, and when they visit, the large fish tend to abandon the area for days.
"We saw them kill a bronze whaler [copper shark] in 2019 – but this new observation is really something else."Orcas are known to occasionally hunt white sharks, but only three studies have ever formally described such a battle. The helicopter photographs suggest at least two other white sharks were also killed by orcas near Mossel Bay on that same, fateful day.With their phone, the pilot managed to snap a series of images and short video clips of the orca predators.
From the helicopter, the pilot snapped photos of one of the orcas chowing down on what looks like a huge shark liver, one the size of an orca's head. This suggests that a white shark's liver is buoyant, which means the fatty meal could drift to the surface following a big bite to a shark's belly.Four minutes before the feeding event, beach-based observers and the drone pilot reported seeing sharks fleeing the area. Some even came in to shore as shallow as two meters.
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