An infamous pair of floppy-finned orcas with a soft spot for white shark livers has been spotted in Algoa Bay.
The fearsome duo were photographed off Cape Recife and experts confirmed on Wednesday that the pictures matched the specimens that had been wreaking havoc with white sharks off the western and southern Cape.
They were spotted on Saturday by Warren Tarboton, 19, skipper with Raggy Charters, one of two boat-based whale watching operators in Algoa Bay, who was out fishing on his day off.
“They surfaced about 50m from our boat and at first they looked like baby humpback whales but then we realised what they were,” he said.
“I had read about the two orcas that had been hitting the sharks down the coast but I never thought they would pop up here.”
The orcas seemed relaxed and inquisitive and had approached closer to have a look at them, he said.
Taking the opportunity, he had alerted his boss Lloyd Edwards who was able to turn around the cruise he was leading and get to the site on time.
Edwards said the animals had remained low in the water and had not been easy to photograph but their unusual dorsal fins had given them away.
“One flopped over to the left and one to the right. It was Port and Starboard for sure.”
Alison Towner, shark researcher at the Dyer Conservation Trust in Gansbaai, who has been following the bloody trail of white shark carcasses for a year and a half, said Edwards was correct.
“Besides the fins we have various ways of identifying individual orcas and this is definitely the same animals.”
The “super-cosmopolitan” marauders have been spotted from Walvis Bay in Namibia around the coast through Langebaan, False Bay, Gansbaai, Plettengberg Bay and now in Algoa Bay.
The trouble started in Gansbaai, a hotspot for white sharks, in February last year.
The first white shark carcass was found and this coincided with a sudden absence of white sharks across the region.
Up until June the carcasses of five more white sharks were found in and around Gansbaai including a 5m one ton mammoth.
On each occasion when one of the carcasses was found, a pair of floppy-finned orcas was spotted in the vicinity and it soon became clear that they were known suspects, the same orcas fingered as the culprits behind the 2016 serial slaughter of sevengill sharks in Castle Rock Reserve in the southwest corner of False Bay.
In May last year, Towner and her team, supported by Port Elizabeth-based shark specialist Dr Malcolm Smale, conducted milestone necropsies on all these animals and their suspicions were confirmed.
“All had similar bite marks and were missing their livers,” she said.
While this was a world first recovery of a liver-less white shark killed by an orca, the attacks had been documented before most notably off California.
“It was shown in these reports how two or more orcas bumped the shark to the surface and flipped it onto its back where it would asphyxiate. Then using the shark’s two pectoral fins they would pull it apart and suck out its liver which is full of squalene, a highly nutritious carbon-rich organic compound.”
Research by New Zealand based marine biologist Dr Ingrid Visser indicated that the orcas floppy fin syndrome was rare and probably linked to stress.
This could stem from rivalry from other orcas, illness or even from fishermen shooting at them, which was known to happen in South African waters, Towner said.
Ecologically, Port and Starboard’s predations were a concern because white sharks kept in check seals which could otherwise decimate critically endangered African penguins.
Economically, the white shark was a key player in the cage diving business on the South Coast.
While sharks had long been a recognised as part of the orca’s diet it was not clear what had driven these two to take on big bulky and highly dangerous white sharks, she said.
“It’s a risky business and one possibility is that it’s related to the drop off in smaller sharks that are being fished out and to the damage we are doing to the ocean generally.”