Killer whales seen hunting great white shark, biting off its tail in shocking video: 'This is special stuff'
A pair of orcas were caught on camera trying to hunt a great white shark off the coast of South Africa.
The footage was captured by marine tour guide Donavan Smith who was guiding tourists in a boat near Knysna, 400 km from Cape Town. In the video that was shared on Instagram and YouTube last week, Smith can be heard saying, "This is amazing. This is special stuff."
Watch the video here.
"There’s a big great white here in the water. They come and they hunt great whites," Smith added. The clip features the two killer whales swimming around with their dorsal fins very visible to the tour group. A 3.5m great white shark is seen taking cover near the boat's bow. Despite the monster great white, orcas are known to feed on sharks, Smith revealed.
"It’s a shark they are hunting. They actually bite the tails off from the back," Smith shared towards the end of the video.
According to a study that was published in Nature, killer whales are formidable opponents against great white sharks, the New York Post reported. The lead study author and scientist, Salvador Jorgensen shared, "When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year."
Back in 2015, two killer whales were seen in the waters near False Bay where great white sharks had been known to hunt. Since then, there has been a drastic decline in great white sightings. Shark carcasses seen in 2017 show orca-sized wounds where whales had only bitten of the shark's livers.
A marine mammal specialist at Stellenbosch University, Simon Elwen spoke to The Times UK and said, "Killer whales are adaptable predators and will rapidly learn new hunting techniques and so it is possible that new behaviors might spread through a population."