How Orcas Hunt Great White Sharks and Why It Matters

How do orcas hunt great white sharks?

The clearest account in the supplied sources comes from South Africa. In 2017, a great white shark washed ashore near Gansbaai with a large wound and its liver removed. Five more carcasses with similar injuries appeared in the following months, according to a BBC report ¹.

A later account says a drone video recorded three orcas chasing and biting a great white near Mossel Bay in 2022 ³. These reports support the conclusion that orcas can kill great whites. They do not give a complete, step-by-step account of every hunt or show that the same tactics are used everywhere.

Why do orcas target the shark’s liver?

The reports say the livers were removed from several shark carcasses. One account says scientists consider shark livers especially nutritious ³. That offers a possible reason for the behavior, but the supplied sources do not provide detailed measurements or explain how researchers determined what the orcas seek.

A carcass with a missing liver is evidence of what happened to that animal, not by itself a full record of the hunt. The video report adds direct observations of orcas chasing and biting a shark, but the available summaries leave many details unanswered ¹³.

Who are Port and Starboard?

Port and Starboard are the names given to two adult male orcas associated with shark predation off South Africa. They are recognized by dorsal fins that bend in opposite directions, according to the supplied reporting ³⁴.

The BBC account says shark biologist Alison Towner suspected the pair after examining the carcasses ¹. The later report describes them as the most probable perpetrators, while also referring to footage of three orcas pursuing a shark ³. That distinction matters: evidence linking orcas to attacks does not mean the pair was responsible for every case.

Where have orcas been reported hunting great whites?

The supplied reporting names South Africa, California and Australia as places where great white sharks have been killed by orcas ³. The sources do not provide enough detail to compare the frequency of encounters across those regions or to show that the same orcas, or the same hunting pattern, are involved.

In South Africa, the reported carcasses and later drone footage drew attention to the relationship. The BBC account says great whites at Dyer Island disappeared from the area after the orcas’ presence became associated with the hunts, but the source excerpt does not establish how long that change lasted or what happened to every shark ¹.

What could this mean for ocean food webs?

A food web is the set of feeding relationships among animals in an ecosystem. When one predator kills another, or changes where it is found, that can matter to the animals and places connected to it. The supplied reporting says scientists have considered possible effects on marine ecosystems ³.

But the sources here do not show the size or duration of any ecosystem change. They do not establish whether shark numbers fell across a region, whether other animals were affected, or whether the reported disappearances were temporary. It is reasonable to describe the hunts as an important predator interaction; stronger claims about broad food-web effects would need more evidence.