Aerial Footage Shows Orcas Flip Juvenile Great Whites to Remove and Eat Their Livers

Aerial footage captures orcas flipping juvenile great white sharks to eat livers

New aerial videos from the Gulf of California off Mexico document a pod of orcas (killer whales) hunting juvenile great white sharks by flipping them onto their backs to induce temporary paralysis and then removing and consuming the sharks' nutrient-rich livers. The footage, captured by independent marine biologist Erick Higuera, includes two separate encounters recorded in August 2020 and August 2022.

In the first filmed event (August 2020), a group of five female orcas worked together to force a young great white to the surface and roll it onto its back. Flipping a shark onto its back triggers a condition called tonic immobility — a temporary state of reduced movement and responsiveness that leaves the shark vulnerable.

'This temporary state renders the shark defenseless, allowing the orcas to extract its nutrient-rich liver and likely consume other organs as well, before abandoning the rest of the carcass,' Higuera said.

Video from the 2020 encounter shows the orcas taking the shark underwater and resurfacing with its liver. The same pod was then observed taking a second juvenile great white in the same way. In August 2022 the researchers recorded a similar pattern: five orcas pushing a juvenile white shark onto its back, bringing it to the surface, and removing the liver.

Researchers identified some individuals from the 2020 event as orcas previously seen hunting other elasmobranchs, such as whale sharks and bull sharks, though imagery from 2022 was not clear enough to confirm whether the same animals participated. Until these recordings, only one prior documented case — a 2022 incident off Mossel Bay in South Africa — had shown orcas preying on juvenile great whites.

'Adult white sharks react quickly to hunting orcas, completely evacuating their seasonal gathering areas and not returning for months,' said Dr. Salvador Jorgensen, a co-author of the study. 'But these juvenile white sharks may be naive to orcas. We just don't know yet whether white shark anti-predator flight responses are instinctual or need to be learned.'

Scientists say the behavior demonstrates orcas' advanced social learning and hunting strategies, which can be transmitted across generations within pods. The team cautioned that while this pod is the only one observed preying on sharks in the region so far, other groups might use similar tactics.

'Documenting the extraordinary feeding behavior of killer whales in this region will help us identify their critical habitats, so we can create protected areas and design management plans to mitigate human impacts,' said Dr. Francesca Pancaldi of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional Centro Interdisciplinario de Ciencias Marinas.

These observations have conservation implications: if orca predation causes adult great whites to abandon key aggregation sites, it can alter local ecosystem dynamics. Continued monitoring and careful mapping of orca foraging areas will be important for both shark and whale conservation efforts.