Scientists uncover way ‘ultimate apex predator’ hunts sharks

The ocean’s most feared predator is now being hunted and killed by a sea creature that researchers say is even more powerful and terrifying than the great white shark. 

Behavioral ecologist Tristan Guttridge has uncovered how orcas, better known as killer whales, have been able to wipe out populations of white sharks around the world – ripping them apart in highly coordinated strikes from the US to Africa.

‘These animals are taking out Jaws… surgically removing their liver and leaving the rest of the animal,’ Dr Guttridge said during Discovery’s annual Shark Week, in a new special airing Tuesday at 9pm ET.

Shockingly, it appears orcas have learned and taught other whales this ᴅᴇᴀᴅly behavior by practicing on human sailing boats, wrecking and even capsizing hundreds of boats worldwide.

Using his own boat as bait, Guttridge teamed with underwater cameraman Kina Scollay and orca expert Dr Renauld de Stephanis to record for the first time how killer whales trained themselves to attack great white sharks using both teamwork and the element of surprise.

Their recordings revealed how orcas communicate using sound frequencies far beyond the range of hearing for a white shark.

Then, the mᴀssive predators attack in packs, surrounding the shark, grabbing its fins to control its motion and then ripping out its liver to be consumed by the group.

Scollay said: ‘These guys are the ultimate apex predator on the planet.’

Pictured: An orca moves in to kill a great white shark (Computer generated)

The first documented case of a killer whale attacking a great white shark came in October 1997 near the California coast

One of the first cases of killer whales attacking great white sharks was off the coast of San Francisco in October 1997. After that incident, all the white sharks disappeared.

Guttridge explained: ‘There has been drone footage of white sharks being chased and predated on by orcas, but you’re not seeing the full picture.’

‘These animals are taking on the other apex predator in our oceans,’ he said. ‘They kill whales. They feed on anything from sea leopards to salmon.’

In South Africa, ᴅᴇᴀᴅ white sharks began washing ashore with their livers ‘surgically extracted.’

Researchers explained that a shark’s liver, which makes up 25 percent of their body weight, represents a pure energy feast to a pod of orcas.

Shark livers help the creature store mᴀssive amounts of fuel, and are also filled with oils that help the animal control its ability to float. For a great white shark, the liver can weigh hundreds of pounds.

While the great white is a mᴀssive predator, orcas are even bigger and can grow to be over 30 feet long and weigh over 14,000 pounds.

Not only do orcas have the size advantage, but Guttridge explained that they are now teaching themselves new tactics as well, traveling thousands of miles to places like Spain to target small yachts and sailing boats as an exercise in hunting sharks.

Two orcas (Lower Right) chase after Tristan Guttridge’s sail boat in order to disable it

Tristan Guttridge (Pictured) believes killer whales are using attacks on human vessels as practice for ᴅᴇᴀᴅly hunts of great white sharks

‘In Spain, they’re actually attacking and disabling sailboats,’ Guttridge revealed.

In May 2020, off the coast of Barbate, Spain, the first report of a ship being rammed by an orca came in. Just weeks later, there were 45 ship attacks along the same coast.

However, the number has exploded since that time, with over 600 ship attacks reported along the Spanish coast. 

‘There’s a number of different theories that have been proposed for this behavior, retaliation, play, compeтιтion, but one that stands out is that this could be some sort of training. They’re using these boats as a teaching platform for their young,’ Guttridge said.

Scientists have seen instances where whales taught other whales how to attack. In South Africa, two orcas named Port and Starboard have been credited with teaching nearby orcas how to hunt down and kill great white sharks.

Using a small boat in Spain’s Strait of Gibraltar, similar to the most common type of boat orcas have attacked, the researchers deployed a fake rudder for the orcas to attack while the team examined how exactly the whales target their prey.

The team spotted Atlas, the first whale Dr de Stephanis documented attacking a boat near Spain in 2020, traveling with a pod of seven to eight orcas. Four of them moved in to attack the rudder of Guttridge’s boat.

One of these predators was seen swimming on its side and biting the giant rudder as the boat tried to escape. A constant attack on the decoy boat ended up crippling the vessel, as the orcas were smart enough to target both the fake rudder and the real one.

The pod then turned their attention to the safety boat, containing Dr de Stephanis, and were clearly seen by Scollay lining up and precisely attacking the boat’s rudder – just like the whales do with a shark’s pectoral fin to reach the liver.

Atlas is a killer whale that is believed to be the first to start attacking human boats in Spain’s Strait of Gibraltar

A pod of orcas targeted the team’s rudders and disabled one boat being used as bait

‘There was genuine fear on my part that this boat would go down,’ Guttridge said. ‘They were persistent, they didn’t back off.’

The research explained that orcas have the ability to ‘see’ with sound, using echolocation, which sends out high-frequency clicks that bounce off prey in the ocean, giving the whales information about an object’s size and distance. 

‘We’re only really beginning to unravel how smart these animals are,’ said Guttridge. ‘It’s a highly intelligent, social animal.’

Orcas form close social groups with other orcas, often spending their entire lives together, learning to both live and work together as a team of predators throughout the world, communicating through a series of clicks, calls and pulses.

This also gives them a distinct advantage over great white sharks, which communicate at much lower frequencies and rely more on their sense of smell to track down injured fish. 

‘The white shark is a highly visual predator; it has one of the largest proportions of its brain dedicated to olfaction, to smell. It can get up to 30 or 40 mph,’ Guttridge revealed.

The team suspected that orcas were able to sneak up and kill great white sharks because they were communicating through sounds outside the range of what sharks generally pick up in the water.

Using a custom sail boat with a stronger rudder, a glᴀss floor to witness the orca attack and special microphones to listen for orca communication, the team returned to the sea to gather definitive proof that killer whales were using boat attacks to train themselves to kill sharks.

Sharks use the element of surprise much differently than orcas, who communicate at much higher frequencies than sharks

Orcas were seen attacking boats in the same way they paralyze great white sharks

Researchers believe orcas sneak up on white sharks in packs, targeting their liver as a source of nutrition (Computer generated)

The modified boat with Guttridge on board was again approached by Atlas and his pod. One of the orcas completely broke the boat’s rudder, grabbing, twisting and bending it to use it as a ‘control point’ on its victim.

The researchers believe the same move could be used on great white sharks – controlling the fin to turn the shark upside down and temporarily paralyzing them.

‘This orca was lining it up at a very specific angle to try and maintain that kind of blind spot position,’ Guttridge revealed. ‘It would be almost impossible for the white shark to detect the incoming orca.’

This revealed how both predators use surprise in very different ways before going in for the kill.

‘For a white shark, attacking a seal at the surface is all about stealth, staying low to the ground, completely camouflaged and then the precision to get up to the animal at the surface and hit it at that right point,’ Guttridge detailed.

‘For a white shark, it’s kind of all or nothing.’

For orcas, however, they work in teams – just as they did to completely disable the modified sailing boat – smashing its rudder and engine.

Before the ship was disabled, the team was able to record the vocalizations of an attacking orca for the first time.

When analyzed, the orca’s calls were all high above a normal white shark’s hearing range, giving them a piece of proof that orcas have learned how to quietly sneak up, outnumber and incapacitate sharks in order to take their nutritious livers.