Posted on 09/15/2020 5:48:21 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The study monitored the movements of 165 great white sharks near Farallon island and documented four encounters between visiting orcas and resident sharks
For years, the great white shark has been believed to be the ocean’s most feared predator. But when five shark carcasses washed ashore on a beach in South Africa’s Western Cape province in 2017, livers chomped from their bodies, a new question loomed in marine researcher’s minds — could the predator be prey?
Scientists examined the bite marks under the pectoral fins of the dead sharks and found that they matched only one other oceanic species — the orca, more popularly known as killer whales.
It’s surreal to imagine that Free Willy the friendly orca could be a threat to Bruce from Jaws. However, a 2019 study documenting the migration of great white sharks off the Farallon Island, located off the coast of San Francisco, has revealed just how much the whales terrify sharks.
A team of marine researchers, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in San Francisco, found that great white sharks will immediately flee if they detect orcas nearby.
“When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year, even though the orcas are only passing through,” said marine ecologist Salvador Jorgensen.
Between 2006 and 2013, the team tagged 165 sharks with electronic tags that would emit ultrasonic signals. Underwater receivers detected the signals as the sharks swam by, which let the team monitor the sharks’ comings and goings throughout Californian waters. They also collected 27 years of data on the population of orcas, sharks and elephant seals — which are preyed on by the sharks and orcas.
“On average, we document around 40 elephant seal predation events by white sharks at Southeast Farallon Island
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
Interested stuff, and yet Killer Whales have no taste for humans? I just don’t recall any stories of such.
I read somewhere that ‘killer whales’ is a mistranslation of ‘orca’. It is actually ‘whale-killers’. Makes sense to me...
It isn't that they have no taste for humans, it's just that humans aren't normally in the water when they are around. There are more more than a few accounts of Orcas attempting to attack humans, dating back to the early 20th Century, while they stood on the edge of the shoreline. Read about Robert Falcon Scott's 1911 expedition to Antarctica.
Dolphins have also been known to kill sharks, usually defensively. Dolphins are more agile than sharks and can usually put a whipping on a shark, especially if it’s two or more dolphins working together.
I would imagine that being warm-blooded is a factor, as well.
Based on the explanation in Wikipedia, “Orca” comes from Greek via the Ancient Romans, and I don’t think it’s a mistranslation. They are “killers of whales”, so I originally thought “killer whales” might just be a contraction. But an alternative possibility is that they look like whales, and unlike genuine whales, kill mammals, hence “whales that kill”, or “killer whales”, and I think that’s consistent with the likely Greek origin.
You guys have completely forgotten the Sea World incident of 2016 or so, never mind other times.
Doesn’t matter either way. Still killers.
Yes, and they are basically dolphins. In the same genus or order.
I didn't forget it, I just didn't mention it since it happened at Sea World and not in the wild. I wouldn't mention zoo keepers killed by lions either in an article about wild lions.
But they will take a chunk out of pretty much anything. You get what you can!
True.
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