The
first known videotape of a clash between a killer whale and a great
white shark has enthralled whale watchers all over the world.
"Nothing like this
has been known to happen before," said Mary Jane Schramm, a naturalist
who witnessed the attack Saturday off the Farallon Islands.
Marine biologists
had assumed that the ocean's two big predators tended to avoid each
other. But the tape shows otherwise.
The video was shot
by wildlife enthusiasts on a cruise sponsored by the Oceanic Society.
They were alerted by a radio transmission from a fisherman who had spotted
two orcas in the area.
The expedition
found the two killer whales -- a 20-foot-long female and a youngster
about half her length -- were still there, swimming idly about.
"Then we noticed
this dark shape moving in the water, giving the orcas a wide berth,"
Schramm said.
The adult orca
veered toward the dark shape, and then surged to the surface with a
10-foot-long great white shark in her jaws. "We were stunned," Schramm
said.
The killer whale
eventually swam away from the boat and began thrashing the shark on
the surface of the water, a practice orcas typically employ with their
prey.
Around this time,
Peter Pyle, a great white shark expert with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory,
arrived on the scene. He got within 5 feet of the killer whales, then
used a special underwater camera to record the attack.
Having made her
kill, the victorious orca let her maternal instinct take over.
"The female apparently
killed the shark, but she didn't eat it -- she was encouraging the calf
to feed,"
Schramm said. Schramm
said the calf "especially liked the liver. You know how hard it can
be to get kids to eat. Not him, though."
