Posted on 10/06/2022 8:41:24 AM PDT by Red Badger
Lead author Alison Towner inspects the carcass of a great white shark....Marine Dynamics/Dyer Island Conservation Trust/Hennie Otto
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Frequent readers of CNET Science will remember Port and Starboard, the duo of killer whales from a story we published in June, which detailed research showing great white sharks were being hunted by the whales off the coast of South Africa. New aerial footage, released on Monday, shows one member of the murderous pair -- Starboard -- actually making a kill.
The footage was released on YouTube as part of a new study, led by Alison Towner, published on Oct. 3 in the journal Ecology. Towner also led the earlier study which used tracking and sensor data to show the great white sightings had plummeted as the killer whales moved in. The researchers hypothesized, from evidence found on shark carcasses, that killer whales were hunting the great whites and any surviving sharks had quite literally been scared away from the area.
The new aerial footage, captured by a private drone operator and a helicopter pilot's Samsung S21, seems to confirm this and is the first direct evidence of orcas killing and eating great white sharks. It was captured in May at Mossel Bay, South Africa, and some footage had previously been released via the Discovery Channel.
"This behavior has never been witnessed in detail before, and certainly never from the air," said Towner, who works as a senior shark scientist at Marine Dynamics Academy in Gansbaai, South Africa.
The photographs and video show some interesting maneuvers -- the researchers believe the whales are potentially homing in on the great white shark's livers, which provide all the sustenance an adult, male killer whale could ask for. The footage shows some of the attacks are directed just behind the pectoral fins, potentially to extract the liver. The team also studied photographs showing Starboard (a whale easily identified by its floppy dorsal fin) chowing down on one.
Intriguingly, Towner's previous research also showed that bronze whaler sharks, another large shark that frequents the South African coast, started moving in as the great whites fled. Great whites sometimes feed on the bronze whalers, but the bronze whalers aren't quite as frightened of orcas... so they felt safe enough to travel into Gansbaai and feed on the seal population. However, a tour operator from the region has seen killer whales attack bronze whalers, too. Truly, no shark is safe.
While Port and Starboard were known to be hunting great whites, the new research shows several other killer whales have also joined the hunts.
It's too early to tell whether these killer whales are learning the shark-hunting technique from their forebears, but the study states if this is occurring, "it will have wider reaching impacts on shark populations and will need to be considered in future studies."
Haha. I was going to post the exact same thing. Well done.
Disney and Warner Brothers are Siamese twins joined at the hips.....................
People are shocked by this because Disney has anthromorphized every animal. So many kids are growing up with the mentality that animals have human instincts and reason.
Yep!
And today’s adults are products of the Disney-fication!.................
Lots of small and medium companies with a very few large ones who constantly get knocked off is what should result from a free market.
When you end up with a few large ones and a few very tiny ones you start to see that someone is interfering.
Separate IPs. Separate TV and Movie studios.
Not much if any crossover.
It was hilarious, because it leaped into the boat and the people didn't even see it come in from their blind side until it was standing in the middle of all of them.. There were two things that stuck out at me:
I didn’t know that Stacey Abrams liked shark meat.
They do business with each other.....................
Well, we know she don’t like tube steak!....................
I know a girl who lives on the hill/She won't do it, but her sister will...
😉😜🤣😂😎🤦♂️..................
One shark to another shark: “I thought we were the top of the food chain?”
ZZ Top.
Tube steak boogie.
5.56mm
You better hope that the Orcas never find out that you compared them to Stacey the Land Whale. They aren’t gonna like that.
Well it’s actually “Tube Snake Boogie”, but close enough.
Steak v snake.
Works either way.
Thanks for the correction.
5.56mm
...and seven times never kill man
It does not mean they are all the same company.
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