Dem orca's taking out boats and great whites!
www.surfline.com/surf-news/south-africa-sharks/204949The left was big, in the six-to-eight-foot region, but it was grinding. It came in from deep water, line up in a wall and stretch to the harbour, before feeling the reef and exploding in a maelstrom of barrel, whitewater, and kelp.
Gansbaai, is a remote fishing town along South Africaâs western cape, and it requires a specific combination of swell, wind, tide, and sand formation for the waves to be good. None of these elements is nearly as troublesome as the fact that the joint is notorious as one of the worldâs best shark diving areas, with proliferous white shark sightings, encounters and wild experiences.
False Bay in Cape Town has a reputation as a home for various shark species. Photo: Grant Scholtz
Until 2015 that is, when two orcas arrived and everything changed around the joint. The duo were called Port and Starboard, due to one having a dorsal fin flopping to the left and the other had a fin flopping to the right. The area was, and still is, a smorgasbord of food for them, and they went for the buffet, as they slowly started massacring great whites.
Between May 3rd and 7th, 2017, three great white sharks washed up dead. Then, the rest of the great white population simply disappeared, perhaps spooked by the new alphasâ presence. These two orcas killed the sharks by neatly slicing them open and eating their livers. Shark liver â which is heavy, about a quarter of a sharkâs weight â is rich in nutrients and oils.
With the great white population absent, or declining, Gansbaai did not become a cold-water Mentawais overnight. The threat was still real, and itâs hard to really know whatâs going on underwater. Still, evidence of the shark exodus was that cage diving operations stopped. The regular six sightings a day, or more, dropped off to one, and then there were no more to be seen.
Starboard here, showing off that signature flopped dorsal fin. Photo: Dave Hurwitz
They would be gone for months, slowly trickle back, and then get spooked and disappear again. This made no real difference to those hardcore surfers who would go there. Still, despite the media reporting that the sharks were leaving, visiting surfers never pitched up. Donât blame them. Itâs a hard place to get good and to surf â the waves are full-on, and it is super scary.
In February last year, the orca pair killed 19 sharks in one day, which seemed to be the final straw for the great white population. They left the region to look for more comfortable homes.
These sharks seemed to have moved up the east coast, finding homes around Mossel Bay, a great little surf town with some shark attack history, and Plettenberg Bay, once home to one of the greatest superbank waves ever seen in South Africa.
Great white numbers are dropping, Port and Starboard are a good reason why.
Sure, the shark population is moving around, but it hasnât stopped surfers just doing their thing out there. Hereâs a spot in Cape Town alive earlier this month. Photo: Grant Scholtz
In December 2022, there was a fatal shark attack in Plett. Then, in the same month, an orca was recorded attacking a great white shark in Mossel Bay, about 90-miles west of Plett, and they seemingly fled the area for a while.
The great whites donât disappear as such; they relocate. As soon as they feel the presence of the orcas or are hunted, they flee. The problem is that they are edging further up the East Coast and might be approaching the surf-rich areas around J-Bay and its environs. The latest development is that a great white shark was attacked by an orca last month in Cintsa, 25-miles north of East London, near the Wild Coast.
Cintsa is also the place where Robert Frauenstein, a bodyboarder, was attacked in 2021 by a great white shark and his body was never recovered.
This could see the white shark population heading further north, into the Transkei region of perfect right-hand points. In 1982, Alex Macun, a photographer for Zigzag magazine, was attacked by a Zambezi shark and died. The last attack happened in 1997 when Australian Mark Penches was attacked by a Tiger shark.
Dolphins are a regular and welcome sight for those in the water at J-Bay. Photo: Greg Chapman
Looking at the patterns, these orcas could be pushing the shark population further along the east coast. Perhaps down into J-Bay and beyond. But weâll update on how thatâs looking in the future. Photo: Mike Ruthnum
Is there an explanation for other predatorsâ attacks on the great white sharks? Is it just Darwinâs theory of survival of the fittest in play? Natural selection. In dangerous circumstances, those organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving and reproducing.
Is it a form of operant conditioning, where an animal learns to perform a behaviour more or less frequently through a reward or punishment that follows the behaviour?
Or are the orcas just smartly heading to where they can get a leisurely lunch? In False Bay in Cape Town, for example, great whites are always found around Seal Island, with plenty of prey readily available in the populous seal colony.
Birds-eye-view from St Francis Bay to Shark Point, where shark sightings are becoming less frequent. Photo: Mike Ruthnum
A wilder anecdotal theory is that the rise of the orca attacks in South Africa is natureâs way of resetting the imbalance caused by human intervention. The result of great white sharks being a protected species since 1991 in South Africa, and conservationists and organisations that protect sharks, might be causing such an imbalance that nature has to reset and recalibrate the numbers to keep it all in check. Thatâs very and highly speculative though.
Whichever way itâs working, Port and Starboardâs presence is undeniable and only time will tell how it all winds up.
