- 29 minutes ago
Orcas (killer whales) are the undisputed winners over great white sharks, functioning as a superior apex predator due to their larger size, higher intelligence, social hunting (pod) behavior, and specialized tactics. Orcas consistently kill great white sharks—often just for their nutrient-rich livers—by inducing tonic immobility (paralysis)...
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AnimalsTranscript
00:07the great white shark and the killer whale two top predators of the sea animals so dangerous
00:19they wouldn't dare challenge one another or so we thought then off the coast of california
00:28it happens the ultimate clash of the titans leaving biologists mystified it was unprecedented
00:37it kind of blew our minds and a team of experts scrambling to make sense of the carnage
00:48and revealing new insights into the battle between two of the world's most aggressive predators
01:07this is great white shark territory the farallons a string of barren islands just 27 miles off the
01:17coast of san francisco every fall the farallons host one of the world's largest gatherings of
01:27great white sharks they come to feast on the thousands of seals and sea lions that assemble
01:37here the great whites hide out in deep waters then catch their prey in surprise attacks they bite with
01:47a force approaching two tons then withdraw to a safe distance while their victim bleeds to death
01:57great whites are the ultimate killers of the sea they dominate the ocean food chain
02:09peter pile and other scientists have been watching great white sharks feed at the
02:14farallons since 1987 well the white shark is really an incredible creature we call it the keystone species
02:23on the farallons because it kind of controls uh the ecology there the ecosystem all the way down
02:34they know these animals better than anyone
02:37we were able to watch them up close doing feeding events and started documenting individuals which
02:44greatly improved our awareness of the shark presence around the island after a decade of research the
02:52farallon biologists have built a detailed picture of the great white shark but then one extraordinary event
03:00changes everything October 4th 1997 pile is stationed on southeast farallon when he responds to a report of a shark
03:15attack
03:15coming from day trippers on a whale watching boat called the super fish
03:21crash no right there right there right there right there right there oh my god but this isn't an ordinary
03:28shark attack
03:30this time the shark is the victim
03:39pile and his colleagues arrive at the scene
03:44there was already a big flock of seagulls that had started swirling around above the event so we knew
03:52exactly where it was and there was a slick in the water and as we approached you could see the
04:00killer whale
04:01moving along with its dorsal fin up with this white shark in its mouth underwater
04:08but they're too late
04:11the battle is over
04:14and the great white shark is already in pieces
04:22but his colleague naturalist Mary Jane Schram on board the super fish saw everything
04:35she set out from San Francisco earlier that morning
04:41we were doing a whale watch nature cruise out to the Farallon Islands
04:45we had an early departure went out through the Golden Gate
04:50everybody wanted to see whales that day
04:52we thought we would see humpbacks
04:54we hoped we would see blues
04:57about half an hour away from the islands
05:00Captain Mick who's known as the whale watching captain around here
05:03was radioed by one of the fishing party boats
05:06Mick Mick, you pick me up?
05:08What about Jake?
05:10Seven miles ahead of them
05:12skipper Jay Yokomizo
05:13the owner of a sport fishing boat
05:15is the first to see killer whales at the islands that morning
05:19I was just scanning the horizon
05:22looking around
05:23and all of a sudden
05:25two orcas just cruised right across the bow
05:28porpoising out of the water
05:29on a mission
05:31Killer whales are a rare sight at the Farallons
05:35so Yokomizo immediately calls the skipper of the super fish
05:39Mick Menigo
05:41yeah, I got two orcas off my port bow
05:45oh, very good
05:45very good, where are you?
05:47as he was telling me that the orcas were there at the main island
05:51all of a sudden he got very excited
05:52he said, hey, hey, wait, what, what?
05:54hey, they just, they killed a sea lion
05:57they're eating a sea lion
05:58and he was, you know, this is all on the radio
06:02when the birds just exploded
06:05and started hovering and diving down
06:08I knew there was a kill
06:10the killer whales began their day
06:12by taking down a California sea lion
06:16I was still like half an hour, 40 minutes away
06:19I just punched the throttles up
06:23make the jump to light speed
06:26trying to get there as quickly as possible
06:27see if we can get some of this action
06:32and we pulled in about 20 minutes after that
06:34and sure enough the orcas were still there
06:377 o'clock, right out there
06:39look at that, over there
06:40we were extremely excited
06:43I've been out to the Farallons at that point
06:46probably a hundred times
06:47and had seen killer whales maybe on one or two other occasions
06:50so this was remarkable
06:54now finished with their meal
06:56the orcas turned to entertaining the whale watchers
06:59we had been alerted that they'd already killed a sea lion
07:02but we didn't see the sea lion floating at the surface
07:06they were doing what orcas do
07:07you know, they're like a giant dolphin
07:09they were just messing around the boat
07:10swimming down and back up and stuff
07:11very friendly
07:14the tourists on board think it's a mother whale with her calf
07:20and we noticed that one of them was significantly smaller than the other
07:24in fact we were speculating whether the one might have been a calf
07:28or, you know, we weren't really quite sure
07:3120 minutes later
07:32something catches Shram's eye
07:37I happened to look down and notice this large dark shape moving right next to the boat
07:45it obviously was not another killer whale
07:47it was a very big shark
07:49and white shark
07:51this was October, this is white shark season
07:53that is precisely what came to mind
07:59it slid along the side of the boat
08:02so it was hugging the boat very close
08:03moving from bow toward the stern
08:05but then about midway
08:07it abruptly made a 45 degree angle turn
08:10and started swimming away from the boat
08:16the great white is now swimming toward the killer whales
08:23so at that point things started getting even more interesting
08:26all of a sudden
08:28one of the orcas made a beeline in this direction
08:33it swam out on an intercept path with the white shark
08:38the killer whale and the great white disappear below the waves
08:43there was a splash and then nothing
08:47we were kind of collectively holding our breath
08:50there was no blood
08:52there was no thrashing around
08:53it was only when the killer whale emerged from the distance
08:58coming back toward the boat
08:59carrying the shark in its mouth
09:01that we actually knew what had gone down
09:03this is really, really strange
09:06this orca came up next to the boat
09:08holding this now what appeared to be dead white shark
09:11by the back of the neck
09:12held it up for us like a cat with a mouse
09:15you know, just showing off
09:16is he eating the shark?
09:18no, I couldn't see
09:20it was holding the white shark inverted
09:23and the white shark was motionless at that point
09:25and it swam for a while
09:27with this upside down white shark in its mouth
09:31the whale watchers are astonished
09:35even the experienced crew is mesmerized
09:39the reaction on the boat as this was going on
09:42was sheer amazement
09:46this was something that had myself
09:48and Mary Jane Schramm all just
09:50dropping our jaw
09:53this was a once in a lifetime thing
09:55we're thinking, what is it we're seeing here?
09:59the crew of the super fish
10:01knows they're witnessing something never seen before
10:06Pete, pick me up
10:07I got an orca over here with a white shark
10:09I was trying to get a hold of Peter Pyle
10:11who was a biologist on the island
10:13and he says, what's going on? I'm kind of busy
10:15I said, Peter, get over here
10:17I said, I can't tell you exactly what's going on
10:20I said, but it involves an orca and a white shark
10:22and the white shark's dead
10:24and it seemed like seconds later
10:26here comes Peter on his little boat
10:29like a blur
10:33it was a bit of a intimidating sight
10:37an orca there with a white shark in its mouth
10:42so I sort of circled it a couple times
10:45hoping that I would be able to figure out exactly how to film this
10:52and I had my pole camera, which is a video camera in an underwater housing on a long pole
10:57and I was able to put that underwater next to the boat
11:04the killer whale dropped the white shark carcass and it started to sink
11:12the liver from the shark, however, had popped up out of the shark and came up near the boat
11:17and both of the whales then came toward the liver
11:22and I was able to get footage of the two killer whales feeding on the liver itself
11:35the two killer whales spend 15 minutes feeding on the remains of the shark before they swim away
11:41the birds are left with scraps
11:45and the eyewitnesses are left dazed
11:50it was a complete surprise to us to see an orca take a white shark
11:54we just had no idea that that could happen
12:00the contest between the two giants answers one classic question
12:06that match-up was kind of what a biologist would sit around a campfire and talk about
12:10you know, who's the biggest baddest in the ocean, a white shark or an orca?
12:13who would win?
12:14well, certainly on this particular day, we had our answer
12:21but the circumstances surrounding this great match-up are strange
12:25killer whales don't normally come to the Farallons
12:29in the 17 years that I had spent on the Farallons
12:32I'd never seen killer whales come closer to the island than about 6 or 8 kilometers
12:38here comes the shark, here comes the shark
12:42the whales had already eaten a large meal of sea lion
12:47there was really no reason for the orca to go after the white shark
12:51the shark didn't threaten them
12:53and the killer whale took the shark without a struggle
12:57what happened in that 15 minutes?
12:59did it ram the shark?
13:00did it catch it and crush it?
13:03did it hold it motionless so that the shark basically suffocated?
13:09then comes the biggest mystery of all
13:13on the day of the attack
13:15the entire great white shark population of the Farallons
13:18up to a hundred individuals
13:21suddenly disappears
13:23without explanation
13:30in October 1997
13:33a whale watching tour goes on the trip of a lifetime
13:39and end up witnessing a historic face-off between the ocean's two top predators
13:4450 excited maritime adventurers may be the first people to witness
13:50that night television stations across California
13:52feature the story of the mother killer whale that killed the great white shark
13:57first time anyone's actually seen it happen
14:00the news reaches L.A. based killer whale scientist
14:03Alyssa Schulman Janiger
14:06I was returning from a walk and opened up my front door
14:10and heard the phone ringing
14:12and I dropped my keys and raced to the phone and picked it up
14:16hello
14:17and a friend of mine said
14:18you need to turn on the TV
14:20turn it on right now
14:24their wildlife guide
14:25the Oceanic Society's Mary Jane Schramm
14:28spotted a 20-foot female killer whale trailed by her young calf
14:32in the 13 years
14:33Schulman Janiger has studied killer whales off the California coast
14:37she's never seen one kill a shark
14:39I don't think anyone saw the actual moment of impact
14:42but there's another reason she's intrigued
14:45she knows the identity of the killer
14:53everything I do is based on how well you can identify an animal and track them
14:59I take photographs and look at unique characteristics on the fins and in the body
15:04to try to tell which individual whale I'm looking at
15:07three males off to the left and
15:09the female juveniles on this side
15:11all the researchers keep track of the whales
15:13and for California we've identified our whales with numbers
15:17okay that's that's a 39 right there
15:19we have the one with the middle marks right here
15:22she's got a juvenile with her
15:23so we have CA1, CA2, CA25, CA39 who we saw today
15:29and CA indicates California
15:31we've got at least three adult males we only had one yesterday
15:34so I've gotten to know the killer whales of California area pretty well
15:38especially what I call the L.A. pod
15:43the L.A. pod is a group of killer whales
15:46occasionally seen off the coast of Los Angeles
15:50it has eight core members
15:52and one of them was caught on camera at the scene of the kill
15:57and they showed the image and the fin really looked a lot like CA2
16:03CA2
16:03I froze it, backed it up, froze it and I saw her unique eye patch with her birthmark
16:09there's no other killer whale in the world that has this birthmark
16:13Society excursion boat
16:15Shulman janitor quickly realizes that the news reports are wrong
16:21these underwater photographs of the juvenile whale feasting on mom's kill
16:26so she's protecting her calf and I know it can't be because CA2 has never had a calf
16:31in fact L.A. pod has no surviving calves
16:36if CA2 isn't defending a calf from an intruder
16:40it's possible that she sees the great white simply as food
16:45little variation in the menu perhaps
16:48the orca could be a predator hunting its prey
16:51to me it didn't seem like it was really racing for it
16:55it was more of a deliberate approach
16:57and obviously a stealth approach
17:00it appears CA2 first stalks the shark
17:06the orca was holding it like just behind the head
17:10then she grabs the largest predatory shark in the ocean in such a way
17:15that it renders it entirely harmless
17:17the white shark was completely immobilized
17:21nothing from the shark the orca just took it out in an instant
17:26the killer whale holds the shark upside down for a long period of time
17:30the shark doesn't even fight back
17:33we didn't see any blood or oil slick
17:37there wasn't any obvious signs of trauma
17:40after 15 minutes the killer whale rips the shark apart
17:44and starts eating its liver
17:52the attack has all the markings of a perfectly executed kill
17:59it's the first recorded event where a great white
18:02becomes the prey of another species
18:07scientists rush to figure out whether this was just a fluke
18:11or whether killer whales regularly hunt great whites in the wild
18:19killer whales live in every ocean in the world
18:22they hunt a wide variety of prey
18:27Ingrid Visser has been watching killer whales hunt off the coast of New Zealand for over 15 years
18:34the orca are very very smart and they'll look at a particular prey item and they'll understand
18:41okay I need to attack it in such a way
18:44so it's just like us really
18:46I mean you have different skill sets for dealing with different situations
18:52so for instance if you go to Argentina you see them coming up on the beach to take the sea
18:56lion pups
19:04if you look at them in Antarctica where they try and wash the seals off the ice
19:09you'll see them coming in and making waves
19:20and if you look for instance in New Zealand where they hunt for the stingrays
19:25and they can pull the rays very very carefully out from underneath the rocks
19:29or they can blow bubbles to scare them out from underneath the sand
19:42killer whales appear to be able to figure out the best way to hunt any prey
19:49but developing a new hunting strategy is not something that happens overnight
19:54it can take years to perfect
19:56then the strategy is passed from one generation to the next
20:04biologists call the resulting traditions a culture
20:08if you look at the definition of culture and you look at what's going on with these different populations of
20:13orca
20:13and the way they specialize in hunting
20:15you can definitely say that they have a culture
20:17and although that's something that we usually just associate with humans
20:21for sure it's happening with the orca
20:26probably have the carcass under the water
20:27right in this area
20:31the killer whales off North America's Pacific coast belong to three different cultures
20:36the first type that most people are familiar with are called resident killer whales
20:41and they're resident either to Alaska or in the most cases to British Columbia and Washington
20:46those are fish eaters and they travel in large groups and they're very vocal
20:52the transients tend to have a longer range
20:55those live in smaller groups and specialize in eating mammals
21:00also there's the offshore type killer whales
21:03they travel in very large groups
21:05they're quite vocal and eat fish groups of up to a hundred for example
21:14on October 4th 1997 CA to killed both a mammal a sea lion and a fish the shark
21:24a pattern which doesn't fit any of the three cultures
21:28the LA pod I feel just doesn't seem to fit the other groups
21:32their vocalizations are different the call does not match any of the other types
21:39there's also been some genetic samples taken of animals off California
21:43and they don't fit any other type
21:45and the shape of their fin and the gray saddle area behind the fin
21:49doesn't quite fit into the other types either
21:51they act different, they talk different, they eat different kinds of things
21:55so the LA pod is an odd pod
21:59the LA pod is a group of killer whales that breaks the rules
22:04it's possible they belong to their own distinct culture
22:08that stems from a different part of the Pacific
22:12the whales in California I notice don't have barnacles
22:17long stock barnacles hanging off their dorsal fin
22:20but the LA pod is the only group of whales that we've seen in California
22:24that has it consistently growing off their dorsal fin
22:28most of the killer whales in Mexico have those
22:31and that's something you really see in the south in tropical waters
22:36the evidence suggests the LA pod spends a lot of time in warm waters
22:42these waters contain less food
22:48than the cold waters of the north
22:50in this environment one of the world's largest predators
22:54can't afford to be too picky
22:57instead of being so specialized
22:59they're more opportunistic
23:01if the chance comes up that they might take a sea lion for example
23:04or fish if there's abundant
23:08this show was created for you and your family to watch together
23:13welcome to Nachio Wild
23:16fish, they seem to have the ability to vary their diet depending on how they are
23:20what the circumstances are
23:23the orca known as CA2 is flexible
23:29she's used to feeding on both meat and fish
23:33but it's unclear why this orca would go after shark meat
23:36unless the LA pod is a shark eating culture
23:42Ingrid Visser says it's not impossible
23:49there's different populations of orca around the world that specialize in hunting for sharks
23:53and they hunt in a number of different ways
23:56they will corral the sharks up
23:58and then if they're small enough just come in and grab them
24:01but it is dangerous for them to hunt sharks
24:05they do it very carefully
24:08on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in New Zealand
24:11another shark eating culture has worked out an ingenious way to kill its prey
24:17it's a technique that might have dramatically affected the outcome of the clash at the Farallons
24:23if I was a shark living in New Zealand waters I'd be very scared of orca, yeah
24:28a fighting maneuver that renders even the great white shark defenseless
24:43killer whales are incredibly skilled at finding new ways to kill a wide range of prey
24:49but can they kill the most aggressive shark in the ocean without putting themselves in danger
24:56there's actually a technique that can render sharks harmless fairly easily
25:05it comes in handy when studying dangerous sharks in the wild
25:17a team of shark scientists is looking for an adult female lemon shark
25:22can you see it?
25:25can you see it?
25:26they want to tag her in order to keep track of her movements in the months ahead
25:30come on guys, come on, closer
25:33alright, get ready
25:35oh
25:37she's ours now
25:38the team corrals her toward the lead boat
25:42manned by Dr. Samuel Gruber
25:44the head scientist of Binnemi's Shark Lab
25:47keep going, keep going, and not far, not close enough
25:49oh yeah
25:51yes
25:52get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it, get it
25:55go in the water, go in the water
25:58get her head in, get her tail in it
25:59your tail, it's her tail
26:01her tail
26:04Gruber wrestles the shark alongside the boat
26:07put her head in there
26:11ohh, oh, oh, oh, oh
26:14whoa, whoa, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa
26:16that's it. that's it, that's it, nice, nice
26:18every available hand helps to turn the shark over onto her back
26:25and when they do
26:26All right, okay, somebody's got to get the tail.
26:28She instantly becomes calm.
26:37Gruber has been working with lemon sharks since 1978.
26:41He studies the juveniles that live along Benamese mangroves.
26:48Here, he discovered something surprising.
26:52One day, I happened to turn the shark over like this,
26:57and I noticed that it stopped struggling immediately.
27:00I was like, uh-huh, something's going on here.
27:03When turned upside down, the juvenile lemon sharks fall into a trance.
27:08And he's sleeping.
27:10Scientists call it tonic immobility,
27:14and they think it happens when a chemical is released into the shark's brain to prevent panic.
27:19It wants to get its visual world right,
27:22and it's being inhibited or stopped from doing that.
27:26So the brain gets flooded with this neurotransmitter called serotonin.
27:31And when this gets an overload of serotonin,
27:34the animal goes into this sleep, basically unconscious.
27:38Almost all sharks fall into tonic when turned upside down
27:42and can't right themselves.
27:51This adult lemon shark is in a trance deep enough for the shark lab scientists
27:55to insert a transmitter into her belly without anesthetic.
28:02In this position, she is completely vulnerable.
28:09The killer whale at the Farallon Islands held the great white shark upside down for 15 minutes.
28:22The shark remained motionless.
28:25It never struggled.
28:29It seems the killer whale put the great white shark into tonic immobility
28:34and held it there.
28:38And this maneuver alone could be enough to kill a shark.
28:44Right side up.
28:45When you turn a lemon shark upside down, it can continue to breathe in exchange.
28:49But if you turn a white shark upside down, it probably can't continue to breathe like that.
28:59A great white is a very energetic shark.
29:02It's a warm-bodied shark that will really require their bodies to move to help their heart pump.
29:08So eventually, you're not going to exchange carbon dioxide for oxygen
29:13because there's no water flowing through the gills.
29:16And their oxygen tension in the blood reduces down to a point where it's like suffocating.
29:24The killer whale could have killed the great white shark by putting it into tonic immobility
29:29and then suffocating it.
29:32It's a technique she might have learned from her L.A. pod.
29:36Is it possible that killer whales know about tonic immobility?
29:41The answer is yes, it is possible.
29:43Their learning abilities are so great that if one of them happened to do it
29:49and see that they kind of freeze or go into this state,
29:54they could communicate it to the other ones.
29:57And they might then get a hunting technique up that does this.
30:04Killer whales are inquisitive, intelligent, and they learn from each other.
30:09If one of them stumbles upon this weakness of sharks,
30:13its pod could become accomplished shark killers.
30:24And that's exactly what seems to be happening in New Zealand.
30:29Here, killer whales hunt stingrays, relatives of sharks, and almost as dangerous.
30:35The whales have learned to first turn themselves upside down before attacking the rays.
30:43Then, when the killer whales right themselves,
30:46the stingrays turn belly up and fall into a tonic state, becoming harmless.
30:52To Ingrid Visser, this proves that the whales know exactly what they're doing.
30:57Given the precise way that these guys hunt for sharks and rays,
31:04I'm pretty sure that the tonic immobility is part of the repertoire of the orca.
31:10If shark researchers know about it,
31:12why wouldn't an animal that preys on sharks know about it as well?
31:17If the L.A. pod frequently encounters sharks,
31:21they might have learned this secret too.
31:25And Shulman Janager suspects the L.A. pod is no stranger to sharks.
31:31With the L.A. pod,
31:33virtually every single animal has big chunks out of the dorsal fin.
31:37Other researchers who have looked at them said,
31:39your whales look like they just got beaten up,
31:42got in a gang fight or something like that.
31:43They can have scars on the dorsal fin,
31:46and scars everywhere, and chunks gone.
31:48So I think they might have a similar history with sharks,
31:51and that this might indicate that.
31:53Down south, in subtropical waters of Mexico,
31:57is where the L.A. pod may have learned how to handle sharks,
32:01and come up with their effortless maneuver
32:03to place great whites in tectonic immobility.
32:08Pyle's underwater footage of the incident reveals CA2's technique.
32:13You could see that there's this white scraping of all the skin off her head
32:17and off her pectoral fins,
32:18and I believe what she did is rammed the shark very, very hard,
32:22kind of knocked the wind out of it.
32:26With the shark now stunned, the next step is easy.
32:30She could kind of extrapolate,
32:31if the small shark that I want to eat,
32:33I turn it over and it doesn't do anything,
32:36then in this instance, the best thing for me to do
32:38to keep from getting harm to my body
32:40is to turn over this big shark.
32:44Based on the evidence,
32:46here's what probably happened at the Farallons.
32:49The great white surfaces to investigate the smell of the dead sea lion.
32:55CA2, the killer whale, detects the shark in the water.
33:00She responds instantly, ready to go for the kill.
33:04The inexperienced shark is unaware of the danger.
33:08The killer whale strikes the shark.
33:11Stunning it.
33:14Then she holds it upside down in a state of tonic immobility
33:18until the shark suffocates.
33:23A precise hit carried out by an experienced member of a shark-killing culture.
33:31The great white shark is no longer an untouchable predator at the top of the food chain.
33:39It appears that sometimes, even they are on the menu.
33:47If this is the case, great whites would likely try to escape whenever threatened by killer whales.
33:54And on the day of the Farallons attack, that's exactly what happens.
34:00Beginning that day, after October 4th, we didn't see any white sharks.
34:06And we knew on the island that they were gone.
34:11The great whites flee, en masse, from the islands.
34:21The Farallons is a major roosting area for seals and sea lions.
34:25In particular, northern elephant seals, which is their preferred prey.
34:31It's been calculated that a white shark eating one seal can last it up to three or four months.
34:38And we've seen individual white sharks take up to five seals.
34:42So if you do the math, that's almost a full year's worth of energy
34:46that it can get in the two months that it's around the Farallons.
34:53Peter Pyle and his fellow researchers
34:55have recorded every shark sighting at the Farallons since 1987.
35:03Each year, the same thing happens.
35:06The number of shark sightings around the island grows steadily
35:09from early September through October.
35:12Then it peaks in early November, when the seal population is at its highest.
35:19At that time, up to 100 adult great whites circle the islands.
35:27But after the October day of the killer whale attack, everything changes.
35:33After October 4th, we just sat up there day after day and didn't see anything.
35:39We were putting decoys out and we were looking for shark-bitten seals and sea lions coming in,
35:46and none of these things were happening.
35:49The great whites are gone.
35:52To Pyle, it means just one thing.
35:56I'm absolutely convinced that the paucity of white sharks was due to that orca event.
36:03They were more afraid of being there than they were about missing an entire season of feeding.
36:10So, so that's pretty remarkable.
36:14No one knows where the great whites went.
36:19Then, a few years later, scientists discover the answer.
36:26After tagging great whites at the Farallons,
36:32they uncover the remarkable annual long-distance migration of great white sharks.
36:40After feeding at the Farallons during the fall,
36:44the great whites swim across the ocean
36:46to winter in a mysterious patch of the Pacific
36:49known as the White Shark Cafe.
36:53It's uncertain what the sharks do when they get there.
36:58In spring, some sharks swim beyond the cafe to as far as Hawaii.
37:03But they all meet up again in late summer
37:06before heading back to the Farallons to feed.
37:11The tags on the sharks allow scientists to track their entire journey.
37:16This becomes a useful tool when history repeats itself.
37:23In the year 2000, on November 19th,
37:27another pod of orca came close to the island.
37:31And this was only the second time we'd ever seen this.
37:36One of the males made a big splash.
37:39And when I got up there,
37:41there was a huge group of birds,
37:44a slick on the water,
37:45there was pieces of white matter
37:47that looked like liver,
37:49and there was no blood in the water.
37:51It must have been a hit on a large fish.
37:53It looked very similar to the white shark attack in 1997.
38:01It's a second orca attack at the Farallons.
38:05The remaining sharks vanish for the rest of the feeding season,
38:09just as they did in 1997.
38:13It's another flight of the whites.
38:18But this time, one of them is wearing a satellite tag.
38:24A 15-foot male great white shark named Tipfin carries his tag for six months.
38:33Then, one day, the tag ejects, and floats to the surface.
38:41The data it beams back is remarkable.
38:44This is the dive profiles for Tipfin, and you can tell that on that day,
38:50very soon, almost immediately after the attack at the Farallons,
38:55Tipfin went over the continental shelf and immediately dove down to 500 meters depth.
39:01And then, from there, he continued all the way to Hawaii.
39:07After the second killer whale attack at the Farallons,
39:10Tipfin travels more than 2,000 miles across the Pacific.
39:15It seems like great whites would rather cross oceans than deal with the hungry killer whales.
39:23The shark went down to 500 meters.
39:26You know, that's 500 meters, that's 1,500 feet.
39:29That's a long way down.
39:30So, um, it was a traumatic event for these sharks,
39:35who would normally be staying around there for the season.
39:41Great whites are ready to flee the moment their only predator, the killer whale, becomes a threat.
39:49At the Farallons, the great whites seemed to know that danger was near,
39:53as if there was a kind of secret signal that caused the whole population to abandon their feeding grounds at
40:01the same moment.
40:05Great white sharks aren't invincible.
40:08When threatened by their only predator, the killer whale, they flee in fear.
40:15But how sharks know when to flee has baffled scientists.
40:22Now, in a lab in New Jersey, shark repellent researchers Craig O'Connell and Eric Stroud are trying to find
40:30the answer.
40:33So here we have a black-nosed shark.
40:34It's a distant relative to a white shark, but it's an ideal model.
40:38And the reason being is that they have the same senses that a white shark has.
40:44Their research suggests that sharks flee when they pick up the smell of their own dead.
40:51Clearly, a potent chemical signal exists in the shark.
40:53And from our experience, we know as that shark carcass breaks down and decays,
40:57it just releases more of these chemical signals, keeps other sharks away.
41:02By extracting key chemicals from the tissues of dead sharks, they recreate the smell.
41:08If you combine these six in a certain ratio, it's like we've recreated a smell of death or something that
41:14triggers a flight reaction in a shark.
41:17O'Connell suspects that it was the smell of death that scared the great whites away from the Farallons.
41:25That white shark may have been leaking out some sort of alarm signal to its conspecifics, or sharks of the
41:31same species.
41:32And these sharks could have picked up on it with their sense of smell and decided,
41:37hey, someone just ate this other white shark, let's save ourselves, let's flee the area.
41:41And that, I think, is responsible for that behavior.
41:48Stroud decides to test his artificial smell of death in Bimini on juvenile lemon sharks placed into tonic immobility.
41:57Okay, Brian, let me know when he's under.
41:59Yep.
42:00Looking good?
42:01Okay, let's see if we can get a response at a very low concentration, say about .1 milliliters.
42:08And we'll go to the nares.
42:10Okay, Brian?
42:11Yep.
42:18Okay, that was a good response.
42:23The smell of death is potent enough to bring a lemon shark out of tonic immobility.
42:28It triggers an instinctive urge in the shark to flee.
42:33So it was a small dose, very violent response.
42:36That's what we want in a shark repellent.
42:37A little bit goes a long way.
42:38Yeah, you're very sensitive to these compounds or sense of smell is highly developed.
42:41So this was a very good response.
42:44Sharks react violently to a concentrated smell of their own dead.
42:50But does the chemical signal work when diluted in the open ocean?
42:57Off Bimini, they spray the smell of death onto Caribbean reef sharks during a feeding frenzy.
43:13Man, look at that one.
43:14Look at this.
43:15Look at this one go.
43:16Get out of there.
43:17Yeah, that was great.
43:19Gone.
43:19Gone.
43:20It's the smell of death.
43:21They just don't like it.
43:22Man, they hit that stuff and they take off.
43:25A lot of fish.
43:26Fish don't mind it.
43:31At the Farallons, these same chemicals leaked from the dead Great White, which triggered panic
43:37in other sharks in the water.
43:43But the islands extend over a hundred square miles.
43:47The signal would have had to work over a large area of ocean.
43:51Here in the Bahamas, it's very easy for us to do a repellent test because we've got all
43:55our sharks balled up essentially.
43:56The white sharks are probably all seeking out their prey over a wide area.
44:00And in that case, it's kind of tough to make that couple of liters of chemical signal
44:04work over maybe a couple of square miles.
44:07From a single dead shark to maybe scattering hundreds of sharks, that's an incredible repellent.
44:12We have to know more about it.
44:16The mass flight of Great Whites at the Farallons still isn't entirely understood.
44:22The scent of the dead shark rotting at the bottom of the sea would have driven some sharks
44:28away.
44:28But experts are still puzzled as to why the entire population of sharks fled.
44:34The white shark orca encounter on the Farallons was unprecedented and it certainly got a lot
44:40of attention.
44:41But when all of the sharks disappeared completely from the Farallons, that just really kind of
44:49blew our minds.
44:50And we spent a lot of time after that trying to figure out how this could be and how can
44:57all of the sharks disappear based on this one event.
45:02The incident at the Farallons remains a mystery.
45:08But it has provided a better understanding of the relationship between the ocean's two
45:13top predators.
45:16In my mind, it's really clear that we've got a top predator here and no one would have
45:21really thought.
45:22There's always a question people have asked me.
45:24What would happen if you put a great white shark in a tank with a killer whale?
45:28Who's going to win?
45:29And I think there's no doubt now the killer whale would, through cunning, through intelligence,
45:34through long-lived, through culture, be able to overcome this possible adversary.
45:41Great whites, the largest shark predators, are also prey.
45:51Some cultures of orca have figured out the secret weapon of tonic immobility.
45:56It's so weird.
45:58In the ocean, the orca reigns supreme.
46:03Great whites will flee if killer whales turn violent.
46:08The great white shark has met its match.
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