'When confronted by orcas, white sharks will immediately vacate their preferred hunting ground and will not return for up to a year.'
Giant great white sharks that are normally top of the food chain flee when killer whales enter their territory, scientists have discovered. The team was studying a population of sharks at the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, off San Francisco, when they realized the sharks would disappear for an entire season after orca turned up at the site.
Great white sharks gather at the Farallones every year between September and December to hunt young elephant seals. They normally spend about a month at the Southeast Farallon Island—and this is the point where great whites and orcas overlap. The killer whales also prey on elephant seals, but their presence is transient and they only turn up at the island occasionally.
"We don't typically think about how fear and risk aversion might play a role in shaping where large predators hunt and how that influences ocean ecosystems," Jorgensen said."It turns out these risk effects are very strong even for large predators like white sharks—strong enough to redirect their hunting activity to less preferred but safer areas."
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