Drone Footage Exhibits Killer Whales Searching and Consuming Nice White Sharks

Frequent readers of CNET Science will keep in mind Port and Starboard, the duo of killer whales from a narrative we printed in June, which detailed analysis displaying nice white sharks have been being hunted by the whales off the coast of South Africa. New aerial footage, launched on Monday, exhibits one member of the murderous pair — Starboard — truly making a kill. 

The footage was launched on YouTube as a part of a brand new research, led by Alison Towner, published on Oct. 3 in the journal Ecology. Towner additionally led the sooner research which used monitoring and sensor knowledge to indicate the nice white sightings had plummeted because the killer whales moved in. The researchers hypothesized, from proof discovered on shark carcasses, that killer whales have been looking the nice whites and any surviving sharks had fairly actually been scared away from the realm.

The brand new aerial footage, captured by a personal drone operator and a helicopter pilot’s Samsung S21, appears to substantiate this and is the primary direct proof of orcas killing and consuming nice white sharks. It was captured in Might at Mossel Bay, South Africa, and a few footage had beforehand been launched through the Discovery Channel. 

“This conduct has by no means been witnessed intimately earlier than, and definitely by no means from the air,” mentioned Towner, who works as a senior shark scientist at Marine Dynamics Academy in Gansbaai, South Africa.  

The pictures and video present some fascinating maneuvers — the researchers imagine the whales are doubtlessly homing in on the nice white shark’s livers, which give all of the sustenance an grownup, male killer whale may ask for. The footage exhibits a few of the assaults are directed simply behind the pectoral fins, doubtlessly to extract the liver. The group additionally studied images displaying Starboard (a whale simply recognized by its floppy dorsal fin) chowing down on one.

Intriguingly, Towner’s earlier analysis additionally confirmed that bronze whaler sharks, one other massive shark that frequents the South African coast, began shifting in as the nice whites fled. Nice whites generally feed on the bronze whalers, however the bronze whalers aren’t fairly as scared of orcas… in order that they felt protected sufficient to journey into Gansbaai and feed on the seal inhabitants. Nevertheless, a tour operator from the area has seen killer whales assault bronze whalers, too. Really, no shark is protected. 

Whereas Port and Starboard have been identified to be looking nice whites, the brand new analysis exhibits a number of different killer whales have additionally joined the hunts. 

It is too early to inform whether or not these killer whales are studying the shark-hunting approach from their forebears, however the research states if that is occurring, “it can have wider reaching impacts on shark populations and can have to be thought of in future research.”