Drone and helicopter footage captured off the coast of South Africa provides what scientists say is the first direct proof that orcas are capable of hunting and killing one of the world’s largest sea predators: the great white shark.
details a more than hour-long pursuit of a number of white sharks by a pod of killer whales off Mossel Bay, a harbor town in South Africa’s Western Cape province. At least two white sharks were killed over a 71-minute period in May, the researchers said.
“This behavior has never been witnessed in detail before, and certainly never from the air,” the study’s lead author, Alison Towner, a shark biologist at Marine Dynamics Academy in Gansbaai, South Africa, said in a statement. The footage could help explain the disappearance of great white sharks off the coast of South Africa in recent years, a decline that scientists and government officials had longOrcas have been known to prey on other shark species, but evidence that they hunt great whites had been limited to examining the carcasses of dead sharks washed ashore for signs of attack.A short drone clip of the attack was released in June.
In one video filmed by an amateur drone pilot, a group of five killer whales swam toward an area known for the presence of white sharks. Two whales were clearly visible on the surface as a third emerged from the depths, pushing a white shark that appeared to be dead. The whale bit into the shark and a large pool of blood was spotted.At about the same time, a helicopter pilot witnessed two sharks being killed by killer whales in the area.
“Killer whales are highly intelligent and social animals. Their group hunting methods make them incredibly effective predators,” said Simon Elwen, a marine mammal specialist at Stellenbosch University and a co-author of the study.
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