Most peopleat least since the movie Jawsassume the creatures are solitary, stupid, antisocial brutes. And even less is known about its social behavior. Its migration routes and favorite hunting grounds, aside from the waters around Seal Island and several other places, remain largely unknown. In fact, despite the white sharks reputation as the animal kingdoms überpredator, surprisingly little is known about the basics of its foraging behavior: its hunting tactics, its feeding cycle, its preferences in prey. Watching such ferocious predatory assaults and intense socializing is a shark biologists dream. Just six minutes have passed since the seal pup was innocently making its way to shore. As we record their interactions, a female sweeps in and usurps the remains of Sneakys abandoned meal. All of a sudden, Sneaky hunches his back and lowers his pectoral fins in response to the threat posed by the larger shark, whereupon he and Couz veer apart. Is he friend or foe? Of higher or lower rank? For half a minute, Sneaky and Couz swim side by side, warily sizing each other up as white sharks do when they meet. The sharks rush their quarry from directly below the power of the attack often hurtles both predator and prey out of the water.įor white sharks (also known as great whites), socializing trumps dining. Sneaky returns to his meal, and another white shark rises from belowa thirteen-foot male we call Couz.Ī Cape fur seals rear flippers are clamped in the jaws of a white shark. The seal carcass floats to the surface while gulls and other seabirds compete vigorously for its entrails, squawking avian obscenities at one another. An ominous blush stains the water and the oily, coppery smell of the wounded seal prickles our nostrils. He carries it underwater, shaking his head violently from side to side, an action that maximizes the cutting efficiency of his saw-edged teeth. The shark, an eleven-and-a-half-foot male we call Sneaky, circles back unhurriedly and seizes the hapless pup again. Now mortally wounded and lying on its side at the surface, the seal raises its head and weakly wags its left foreflipper. We and our crew of five student volunteers watch breathlessly as the drama unfolds. It hangs, silhouetted in the chill air for what seems an impossibly long time before it falls back into the sea, splashing thunderous spray beneath a gathering mob of seabirds. Framed against purple clouds washed with the orange light of breaking dawn, the shark clears the surface by an astonishing six feet. Suddenly, a ton of white shark launches from the water like a Polaris missile, the little seal clamped between its teeth. A lone Cape fur seal pup porpoises through the gently rolling swells toward the island. Our research vessel drifts off Seal Island, South Africa. All photos courtesy of the ReefQuest Centre for Shark Research ( ITS TWENTY PAST SEVEN on a winter morning. Its social life and hunting strategies are surprisingly complex.Ī white sharks dorsal fin breaks the surface. New studies of the white shark ( aka great white) show that
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |