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#Post#: 581--------------------------------------------------
Predator Competition
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: October 10, 2022, 2:35 pm
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HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-180822134328.png
October 9, 2022 Bloomberg
HTML https://gcaptain.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/killer-wales-orcas-jumping-1536x1021.jpg
[center]Orcas[/center]
[center]Rare Video Shows Orcas Hunting A White Shark
👀[/center]
By Antony Sguazzin (Bloomberg) A drone operator and helicopter
pilot captured rare footage of a pod of orcas killing a great
white shark near Mossel Bay on the south coast of South Africa.
Now sharks haven’t been seen in the area for weeks.
Orca attacks have been cited by scientists as a possible cause
of the giant shark species’ disappearance from some waters off
the country’s coast.
The footage, captured on the afternoon of May 16, shows a group
of five orcas bringing an apparently dead three meter (10-foot)
white shark to the surface 400 meters off Hartenbos Beach,
according to an Oct. 3 study released by researchers at the
Marine Dynamics Academy in Gansbaai, South Africa. Mobile phone
footage from a helicopter pilot in the same area at about the
same time shows orcas chasing great whites and one of them
eating the liver from a dead shark.
“This behavior has never been witnessed in detail before, and
certainly never from the air,” said lead author Alison Towner, a
PhD candidate at Rhodes University, South Africa, according to a
press release from the Ecological Society of America, which
published the study.
Minutes before the attack, white sharks were seen by a number of
observers fleeing the area, with some swimming into shallows to
escape the orcas. While 10 sharks were observed during a 75
minute drone flight on the day, only one was seen in daily drone
flights over the next eight days, the researchers said. Cage
diving operators, who charge tourists to observe sharks from the
safety of underwater cages, saw an average of more than three
white sharks per trip in the 10 days before the attack and none
of the predators for the 45 days after it.
“Given the well-documented, predictable year-round presence of
white sharks in Mossel Bay, the sudden absence of white sharks
for several weeks immediately after the predation event supports
a flight response by surviving white sharks in the area,” the
researchers said.
Two orcas
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122257-657398.png,<br
/>known as Port and Starboard because of their way their dorsal
fins lean, have been blamed by a government-appointed panel for
the disappearance of white sharks off Cape Town
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-120422122257-657398.png,<br
/>which lies 344 kilometers (214 miles) west of Mossel Bay,
after
they killed and ate a number of the animals.
“The study confirmed that one infamous killer whale, locally
known as ‘Starboard,’ was part of the pod and ate what was
suspected to be a large piece of shark liver at the ocean
surface,
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-050422144605.png”<br
/>the Ecological Society said in the statement, referring to the
Mossel Bay attack.
In the two years to 2020 only one confirmed sighting of a white
shark was recorded in the waters off Cape Town compared with an
average of 205 per annum between 2010 and 2016. A similar
pattern was observed off California’s Farallon Islands after a
spate of orca attacks.
Earlier this week a dozen white sharks, an unusual number for
this time of year, were seen during an aerial survey off the
coast of Plettenberg Bay, a popular resort 114 kilometers to the
east of Mossel Bay, radio Algoa FM reported, citing a statement
from the local Bitou Municipality. The municipality said that
the sharks may have been “displaced from Mossel Bay” by the
orcas.
Plettenberg Bay has reported two ☠️ fatal attacks
on swimmers by white sharks recently, one late last month and
the other on June 28. Footage on social media in recent days has
shown large sharks swimming in water just a few feet deep off
the town’s beaches.
Great white sharks can grow to about five meters and weigh two
tons. Orcas can reach
HTML https://soberthinking.createaforum.com/gallery/soberthinking/1-220922210814-19992205.png<br
/>eight meters and weigh four tons.
Watch The Video 🧐
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/aK0iqgO_inE[/center]
By Antony Sguazzin © 2022 Bloomberg L.P.
HTML https://gcaptain.com/rare-video-shows-orcas-hunting-white-shark/
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