[imagesource: Facebook / Alison Towner]

Footage shared last month of orcas feeding on a great white shark made waves around the world.

According to Alison Towner, a senior white shark biologist at the Dyer Island Conservation Trust, it was the world’s first drone footage of orcas predating on a great white shark and the first time in South Africa it’s ever been documented as direct evidence. She went on to say it’s “probably one of the most beautiful pieces of natural history ever filmed”.

Towner struck a more sombre tone this week when sharing images of a great white carcass found in Hartenbos, Mossel Bay, on Sunday.

It’s the first orca predated white shark carcass found on this beach, according to her Facebook post:

Leading the research on these interactions, as part of my PhD and conducting the necropsies with expert colleagues on all of the shark carcasses here in South Africa, it never gets easier seeing this.

Image: Facebook / Alison Towner

This is a very fresh sub adult female shark.

If you have questions on this topic please read our paper ‘Fear at the top: killer whale predation drives white shark absence at South Africas largest aggregation site’.

You can download and read that paper here.

It’s clear that Port and Starboard, two infamous orcas (or killer whales) that frequent the Cape’s waters, have taken a liking to great white shark liver and Towner’s work has illustrated how the duo has thrown the entire local ecosystem into turmoil.

The infamous orcas’ involvement in this latest great white death has not been confirmed but they are the chief suspects, reports Getaway:

Killer whale pair Port and Starboard, known to prey on the great white sharks of the Western Cape are suspected to have struck again…

The carcass has been moved to the Dias Maritime Museum for dissection, but all signs indicate that the shark had fallen victim to killer whales.

Drone Fanatics SA said yesterday that “to everyone that wanted information on the Great White that was killed, we all knew it was an Orca attack, but it has been 100% confirmed”.

The page also shared footage of the shark carcass on the beach:

Shark Spotters, which does fantastic work along the Cape Town coast, will post information throughout the week that “dives deeper into what has been happening in the waters off South Africa’s Southern and Western Cape Coastline, and discuss what this could mean for our marine ecosystems in the short and long term”.

[sources:facebook&getaway]