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Incredible drone footage shared during Discovery Channel’s Shark Week shows the moment three killer whales in South Africa’s Mossel Bay hunt down and kill a 9ft great white shark.
The gruesome video, which was reportedly taken during the filming of “Shark Week” earlier this year, aired Thursday on the “Shark House” special.
The orca bites the shark around its liver, a cloud of blood pooling in the green water.
Part of South Africa-based marine biologist Alison Towner’s long-term work with great whites, the clip she shared is what she wrote on Instagram as “one of the most incredible pieces of natural history ever captured on film.”
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Three killer whales chase a 9-foot great white shark (Credit: Discovery’s Shark Week)
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast, the scientist said she has been studying the kinetic ecology of great white sharks for 15 years.
While Towner noted that Mossel Bay had observed great whites disappearing, this is “the world’s first drone footage of killer whales leading a white shark.”
The moment the three killer whales attack (Credit: Discovery’s Shark Week)
“This is the first time in South Africa that it has ever been documented as direct evidence,” he said.
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The researchers, he told the agency, had evidence of killer whale attacks on great white sharks, and the data had revealed a change in the orcas’ cycling habits.
Two of the killer whales chasing the shark (Credit: Discovery’s Shark Week)
Towner’s article published in the African Journal of Marine Science addresses the issue in more depth.
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“The reality is that their movement has been greatly disrupted by the increased risk of predation by killer whales and now the total number of dead white sharks has climbed to [eight] and one more basking whale shark since this paper was submitted,” Towner wrote on Instagram. Last week, along with the Marine Dynamics Academy team, I conducted yet another necropsy on a dead great white shark…”
“Shark Week” runs through Saturday.
Julia Musto is a reporter for Fox News Digital. You can find her on Twitter at @JuliaElenaMusto.