Photos of Scarred Shark Reveal Details of Battle With Orcas

Photos of a scarred great white shark have revealed details about its intense battle with orca, as it escaped getting its liver torn out by the predator.

A paper published in the Marine Biological Journal on March 14, 2023, analyzes pictures taken of a great white shark in 2017. The shark had been spotted swimming off False Bay, near Cape Town in South Africa, during a cage dive.

The shark appears to be covered in teeth marks which matched that of an orca, the study reports. The teeth scratches appear to be from an orca's lower jaw, where it attempted to grab the shark from above.

Close analysis of the scratches also found that they appeared to be inflicted with "significant force," the study said.

The injuries also could have been worsened as the estimated-11.5-foot shark vigorously attempted to escape the orca's jaws.

Two adult male orcas, known to scientists as Port and Starboard, are known for attacking and eating sharks off the South African coast. The pair gained notoriety in 2015, when it became clear that they were responsible for the deaths of several broadnose sevengill sharks.

But, the pair did not stop there. Between 2017 and 2019, the orcas started turning their sights on great white sharks.

And orcas do not just eat the sharks, but based on carcasses analyzed by scientists, it appears that the predators are ripping them open and taking out their liver with surgical-like precision.

There has been no scientific confirmation that Port and Starboard were responsible for the attack mentioned in the paper. But orca predation on great whites is extremely rare, and has not been detected in other orcas in the area. This means they are more than likely responsible for the attack.

Alessandro De Maddalena, study author and former professor of marine vertebrate zoology at the University of Milano-Bicocca, told Newsweek: "My paper is only a short note, just a tiny piece of a large puzzle in our understanding of the role of great white sharks and orcas in the marine ecosystems. For five years we have been literally inundated with media reports informing us how easy it is for orcas to tear apart great white sharks. Consequently I felt it was important to report this case, which reminds us that orcas, like any other predator, can't always be successful, and that great white sharks, especially large or medium-sized like the one described in my study, are not easy prey at all. Outside South Africa, only two cases of orca predation on great white sharks were reported, one in California and one in South Australia. Therefore we know that great white sharks aren't a usual prey of orcas."

In 2019, there appeared to be a decline of great white sharks in the False Bay area, which had always been a hotspot for the species in the Western Cape of South Africa. Scientists largely put this down to the orcas, who had been driving the species away with their hunting methods.

But De Maddalena said that the orcas are not causing a decline in the species as a whole.

"A large part of the media has spread the nonsensical information that two orcas are the cause of the dramatic decline in the number of great white sharks observed in recent years along the coast of the Western Cape. Orcas appear to be responsible for killing a couple of great white sharks a year, which is statistically insignificant," De Maddalena said. "Orcas can also cause great whites to leave a certain area for short or long periods, but they are certainly not responsible for the massive decline of great white sharks. The real reason for this is fishing, which affects both great white sharks and their prey. Although in 1991 South Africa was the first country in the world to declare the great white shark a protected species, there is not enough enforcement."

Great white sharks are listed as a vulnerable species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. There are thought to be less than 3,500 individuals in the world. This is largely because they are fished for sport, as well as for their jaws and fins.

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