Orcas Dethrone Great Whites as Ocean's Top Predator in Stunning Video Evidence

Off the coast of South Africa, the ocean's hierarchy shifted in a way that scientists had long suspected but could never quite prove—until May 16, when a pod of five orcas hunted down a great white shark in Mossel Bay and one of them ate its liver. The footage, captured by helicopter and drone, shows the kill in full detail: the coordinated pursuit, the shark's desperate circling, the moment the predator became prey. For shark biologist Alison Towner, a PhD candidate at Rhodes University, the video was confirmation of years of circumstantial evidence—washed-up carcasses with livers missing, orca sightings followed by shark disappearances, a pattern that had accumulated since 2017 but lacked the visual proof that would silence skeptics.

Towner is the co-author of a paper analyzing the footage, published this week in the journal Ecology. When she first watched the video, she said, it "confirmed everything." The footage allowed scientists to see exactly how the hunt unfolded: one orca closing in on the shark while the others coordinated the attack. The great white responded by swimming in tight circles, a defensive maneuver that works sometimes for the shark's own prey—turtles and seals use it to escape. But this time it failed. The difference, Towner explained, is that orcas hunt in packs. "I always refer to the orcas as being like the wolves of the ocean," she said. "They've got the edge because they're coordinated and they've got teamwork, whereas the white sharks are on their own. They're caught by surprise and they're basically just panicking."

The orcas involved in this kill appear to be part of a teaching lineage. Two individuals known as Port and Starboard—the latter visible in the footage consuming the shark's liver—are suspected of originating these hunting techniques and passing them to other pod members. Starboard appeared in the video itself, eating the nutrient-rich organ that makes up a significant portion of a shark's body mass. Josh D. McInnes, a marine mammal researcher at the University of British Columbia, suggested several possible motivations: competition for food resources, protection of young calves, or simply the nutritional value of the liver itself, which is dense in oils and nutrients. The orcas, despite their common name, are actually dolphins—and they are apex predators in their own right, efficient and coordinated hunters that have earned their reputation.

What makes this footage novel is not necessarily the behavior itself. Reports of orcas killing great whites in California date back to the late 1990s, and a 2019 study found that when orcas appear in shark-infested waters, great whites flee. Jenny L. Atkinson, executive director of the Whale Museum in Washington, noted that with more cameras and drones in the ocean, scientists are documenting behaviors that may have been occurring for years without visual evidence. But the South African footage is the first clear, detailed record of the kill itself—and the ecological consequences are already visible.

After the May 16 hunt, no great white sharks were seen in Mossel Bay for 45 days. They began to reappear in summer, but then another mangled carcass washed ashore. Since then, the sharks have not returned. Towner suspects that the same orca pod killed three additional sharks that same day, though only one kill was captured on video. The displacement is the real concern. South Africa's coast is the great white shark's natural feeding ground, and it remains unclear where the fleeing sharks have taken refuge or whether they will return. "How many more times can it happen before the entire population is displaced?" Towner asked. The question points to an uncertainty that no amount of video footage can yet resolve: what happens to an ecosystem when its apex predator is driven away by a more efficient hunter, and where does that displaced predator go?