Man Captures Video of Killer Whales Eating Shark

New drone video posted to Facebook revealed a rare and captivating sight: two adult female killer whales and two calves killing and eating a large shark in California’s Monterey Bay.

The video is remarkable enough for the type of killer whale shown, the seldom-seen offshore killer whale. The fact that these whales were seen in the process of preying on a large, still-alive shark makes it that much more amazing.

The video was captured by Slater Moore, who had set out aboard the SeaWolfe II with the whale tour company Monterey Bay Whale Watch. The touring group spotted the whales from the deck of their boat and the crew said they could see the whales were tearing into something. Moore quickly flew a drone over the scene to see what was going on.

“And all of a sudden one of them brought it up, brought up the whole shark — and it was still alive, it was squirming around,” Katlyn Taylor, a marine biologist with the company, told The Verge.

She said the shark was likely a sevengill shark, a common shark in the area that scientists don’t actually know a lot about.  While sevengill sharks can get up to 10 feet long, this one appears to be about half that size, observers said.

A rare site on the ocean

It’s difficult to catch a glimpse of offshore killer whales eating because they mainly eat fish and squids underwater. Researchers have known offshore killer whales eat sharks, as shark bits have been found in the stomachs of dead whales that wash up on shore.

The offshore killer whales only appear in Monterey Bay about every year. While researchers have spotted the whales from southern California to Alaska, where they spend the majority of their time is largely unknown.

The more-frequently seen killer whales in Monterey Bay are transient killer whales, which primarily eat other mammals. These two types aren’t quite different species, but researchers have said they could ultimately become diverge because they don’t prey on same things, speak the same language or interbreed.

“They’re kinda tricky animals to study,” Taylor said. “They hold their breath a long time, they swim really fast, they travel way offshore. That’s part of the fun though, you never know what’s going to happen.”

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Image credit: GoWhales.com/Facebook

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