Nothing gets the weekend started like a good old fashioned feeding frenzy.
And an absolutely spectacular feeding frenzy recently went down off the coast of Massachusetts as the bloated carcass of a dead humpback whale brought in a group of 8 great white sharks looking for a feast.
A team of scientists in the area was notified that a dead whale had floated to the surface not far from where they were conducting research on basking sharks. They rushed to the scene in hopes of being able to observe what types of marine predators would come in to scavenge the carcass, and they wound up capturing some absolutely incredible shark feeding footage.
And local whale watching tours were even able to make it to the scene in time to watch the show.
In the video, the sharks can be seen rising out of the water to rip chunks of blubber off of the dead whale.
The team witnessed 8 different sharks attacking the expired whale. Flocks of birds could also be seen getting in on the action.
The sharks were so distracted by the feast in from of them that the researchers were able to tag 5 of them acoustic tracking devices that will provide important data on shark movements.
“One of the hardest things to communicate to people is how massive white sharks can be. Until you see one in person, it’s hard to appreciate the girth which may be more impressive than length. These photos from yesterday, with the whale for scale, do help put it into perspective.”
According research ecologist Dave Wiley who shared his eye-witness account with LiveScience, 6 of the sharks had previously been observed by scientists in the area, but two female sharks were new to the area, including a gargantuan 18 footer.
“It was nature in action. Everything dies for something else to consume. Nothing goes to waste.
One of the hardest things to communicate to people is how massive white sharks can be. Until you see one in person, it’s hard to appreciate the girth, which may be more impressive than length.”
A research team also was able to examine the dead whale and determine that it was roughly 1-years old and had likely died from a fatal run in with a large boat propeller or commercial fishing net.
Feeding frenzies of this magnitude are a very rarely observed in the wild, mainly because they happen so fast.
Once nearby sharks smell a decaying whale in the water, they tend to congregate in a group around it and whipped up into a frenzy. As the sharks start aggressively tearing away the outer layers of blubber the rest of the carcass begins to sink and the feeding frenzies slip out of site from the top of the water.
But since researchers were able to pinpoint the location of this carcass as it sank, they were able to use underwater camera technology to capture some of the most amazing feeding frenzy footage ever recorded.
