Killer whale suspected in rare great white shark kill off Victoria coast

A three-metre great white shark washed up on a beach near Cape Bridgewater, west of Portland in Victoria's southwest, torn open in a way that suggested something far larger and more deliberate than the usual forces of tide and time. The carcass looked like it had been ripped in half. Ben Johnstone, a fisherman and bait shop manager, inspected the remains on a Tuesday after receiving a tip-off and immediately recognized the pattern of injury. Two days earlier, a pod of killer whales had been spotted circling in nearby Bridgewater Bay by nature photographer Allen McCauley. Johnstone knew what he was looking at: orcas hunting.

Killer whales are notoriously selective eaters, and great white sharks appear high on their menu. Johnstone had spent fifteen years fishing these waters without ever seeing a shark carcass wash ashore like this. "It's probably a once in a lifetime experience to see something like that," he said. He shared images on his business's Facebook page, and the post drew hundreds of reactions—people calling it both cool and terrifying, a display of nature at its most devastating. The incident arrived amid other recent shark activity in the region: a swimmer had been attacked at Beachport earlier that month, and tuna fishers had spotted a great white off Cape Jaffa, both just across the border in South Australia.

When the carcass was reported to authorities, it was collected and samples were sent to government agencies and academics. Lauren Meyer, a trophic ecologist at Flinders University, examined the evidence and concluded it was likely a killer whale attack, though not with absolute certainty. The orcas, she explained, had probably come for the liver—a specific organ they prefer in white sharks, makos, bronze whalers, and sevengills. They also eat the tongues of humpback whales and the intestines of sunfish and dugongs. "We're not actually sure why killer whales are such picky eaters," Meyer said. The selectivity is striking and remains poorly understood.

What makes this kill noteworthy is its rarity. Only nine interactions between orcas and great whites have been documented in Australia and New Zealand, with additional incidents recorded in South Africa and the United States. Portland, however, sits at the intersection of two important marine corridors: great whites use the area as a passage, and killer whales hunt there regularly across multiple prey species. Meyer was not surprised to find evidence of predation in this location. "We know there are white sharks that go through that area and use it as an important corridor," she said. "We also know that it's a place for killer whales where they hunt a number of different prey items."

Killer whales remain among the ocean's most elusive and mysterious animals. Each pod and ecotype exhibits distinct behaviour that makes broad generalizations difficult. Meyer and her research team at Flinders are part of an international effort to build a database on shark-orca interactions, hoping to understand what is happening globally and why these encounters, while documented, remain so rare. Researchers will continue investigating the Portland incident, examining rake marks on the carcass and analyzing leftover genetics, including saliva, to confirm the killer whale's involvement and add another data point to a still-incomplete picture of how these two apex predators interact.