Two orca tormentors have terrorized the sharks off the coast of South Africa, setting off the shark's instincts to flee.
Lead author Alison Towner with the carcass of a Great White Shark, washed up on shore following an Orca attack. .When we think about the ocean, sharks are at the top of the food chain. But what if that’s not always the truth?states that, for the past five years, two orca whales have hunted and sufficiently terrified the great white sharks off the coast of South Africa.
The authors tracked 14 great white sharks, tagging information and sighting records over a period of five-and-a-half years. Their results revealed that a significant portion of the shark population fled from the area abruptly and all at once in the aftermath of the orcas’ appearance. Researchers presume it was a result of sharks' natural inclination to avoid predators.
“Following an orca attack in Gansbaai, individual great white sharks did not appear for weeks or months,” says primary study author Alison Towner, a biologist at the Dyer Island Conservation Trust, in a. “The more the orcas frequent these sites, the longer the great white sharks stay away.” Their research illuminates a predators' response to predation risks and informs scientific understandings of how tightly intertwined these relationships are between predators and prey in marine settings.In fact, the study authors say that the impacts of the orcas’ attacks and the sharks’ mass migrations are already rippling through the Gansbaai coast. “Balance is crucial in marine ecosystems.
“There is only so much pressure an ecosystem can take, and the impacts of orcas removing sharks, are likely far wider-reaching,” Towner says in a
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