Great white sharks have a strong fear of killer whales and will immediately flee if they encounter one.
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Great white sharks, which can grow to over 4m in length, are widely distributed in the oceans of the world and are extremely frightening to humans, such as being the model for the movie ' Jaws '. However, researchers claim that such great white sharks are very afraid of killer whales , and when a killer whale approaches, they abandon the hunting ground where they have been staying for a long time and run away in an instant.
Great White Sharks Flee From Killer Whales - The Atlantic
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/great-white-sharks-flee-killer-whales/587563/
Salvador Jorgensen of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, USA, has been studying great white sharks off the coast of California for 15 years. Jorgensen and his team have been tracking the location of great white sharks by shooting electronic tags at the sharks.
In 2009, Jorgensen and his team implanted tags in 17 great white sharks hunting elephant seals southeast of the Farallon Islands . For several months, the great white sharks hunted in the Farallon Islands, but on November 2, 2009, when two killer whales appeared near the hunting grounds, all the great white sharks suddenly disappeared.
The great white sharks were not dead, but were confirmed to be in waters away from the Farallon Islands. Jorgensen said that the great white sharks, who left their long-used hunting grounds just eight hours after the killer whales appeared, did not return to the Farallon Islands for more than a month. There have been other similar cases, and Jorgensen believes that 'killer whales are the ultimate fear for great white sharks.'
Although killer whales are generally seen as more friendly than sharks, Toby Daly-Engel, a shark expert at
There have been reported cases where great white sharks have encountered killer whales and been killed. In 2017 , five great white sharks that were thought to have been attacked by killer whales were found washed up on a beach in South Africa. All of the washed up great white sharks were missing their livers.
The liver of a great white shark makes up a quarter of its body weight and is known to be very rich in nutrients such as fat. According to Jorgensen, the liver of a great white shark is one of the most calorie-dense foods you can find in the ocean, and killer whales are believed to be targeting the nutritious liver of great white sharks. Killer whales do not have arms, but judging from the wounds left on the carcasses, it is believed that they bite into the pectoral fins of great white sharks and push their bodies to remove the liver from the wound.
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Killer whales are a threat to great white sharks, and even before a fellow great white shark is attacked by a killer whale, the great white shark will flee from the scene just by sensing the presence of the killer whale. According to Jorgensen, the great white shark probably smells the killer whale's scent and senses its presence, and the killer whale's scent creates a 'fear landscape' for the great white shark.
It is said that fear of death often changes the behavior of animals in the natural world. For example, the presence of tiger sharks is said to drive dugongs to deeper areas of the ocean, and dugongs dive to safer deeper areas where there is less food out of fear of tiger sharks. There have also been cases where the barking of dogs has been shown to keep raccoons away.
In the 2009 case, the presence of killer whales kept great white sharks away from the Farallon Islands, creating a predator-free haven for the elephant seals. 'You had a meeting between the two predators, and the elephant seals were the winners,' Jorgensen said.
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