SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Killer whales are kings of the sea -- and now there's videotape to prove it.
A clash between a killer whale and a great white shark last weekend was captured on video. The taping, apparently the first ever, has electrified researchers around the world.
"Nothing like this has been known to happen before," said Mary Jane Schramm, a naturalist who witnessed the attack.
Before the encounter Saturday off the Farallon Islands, 20 miles west of San Francisco, marine biologists assumed that killer whales and great white sharks -- the ocean's two boss predators -- avoided each other.
Wildlife enthusiasts on a cruise sponsored by the Oceanic Society received a radio transmission from a fisherman who'd seen two orcas in the area. When the boat arrived, the two orcas -- a
20-foot-long female and a youngster about half her length -- were swimming idly about.
"Then we noticed this dark shape moving in the water, giving the orcas a wide berth," Schramm said.
Soon, the female orca veered toward the dark shape, and then surged to the surface with a 10-foot-long great white shark in her jaws.
"We were stunned," Schramm said.
The whale eventually swam away from the boat and began thrashing the shark on the surface of the water, a practice orcas typically employ with their prey.
About this time, Peter Pyle, a great white shark expert with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory stationed on Southeast Farallon Island, raced to the scene. With a special underwater camera, he got within five feet of the orcas and began shooting the attack.
"The female apparently killed the shark, but she didn't eat it -- she was encouraging the calf to feed," Schramm said. "(The calf) especially liked the liver. You know how hard it can be to get kids to eat. Not him, though."
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