[ad_1]
The favorite prey of white sharks and orcas is the same, both like to eat elephant seals. Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and partner institutions have discovered that great white sharks may not have been the most formidable predators in the ocean. Scientists have discovered that when killer whales encounter white sharks, they immediately leave the preferred hunting grounds and may not return for a full year.
Scientists have discovered that sharks release their hunting grounds even if killer whales simply crossed the area. The researchers documented four encounters between oracs and white sharks in marine sanctuaries off the coast of California. The meetings were extracted from data on interactions using 165 white sharks tagged between 2006 and 2013 and 27 years of surveys of seals, killer whales and sharks.
In all the cases examined by the scientists, the white sharks fled the sanctuary when the orcs arrived and did not return until the following season. When killer whales hunted white sharks from hunting areas, seal colonies in the area indirectly benefited from the interaction. Researchers say that on average there are 40 seal elephant predation events by white sharks every year, but after the onset of killer whales, there are more sharks and more sealers.
The data show that in years when white sharks are gone, there are four to seven times less predation events on elephant seals. White sharks congregate in the area on which researchers investigated each fall between September and December to hunt young elephant seals. Transient killer whales feed on the same seals but only occasionally appear at the sanctuary.
The team determined when white sharks and killer whales were in the area at the same time, using tags on sharks and records of killer whale sightings during the same period. The team notes that white sharks are huge and that they are over 18 feet long.
[ad_2]
Source link