The Discovery network recorded drone footage of three orcas killing a Great White Shark during filming near Mossel Bay in the Western Cape during what is known as “Shark Week” in the United States.
The film serves as supporting testimony for the theories of scientists regarding shark migration.
After thirty years of Shark Week programming, the Daily Beast, which obtained the video footage from Discovery ahead of its television debut, claims that this is the only instance of its kind to have been documented on camera.
The footage is historical, and according to Alison Towner, a scientist based in South Africa who studies the ecology of the Great White Shark movement, it is “one of the most beautiful pieces of natural history ever captured.”
Two Orcas are seen swimming in the ocean of Mossel Bay in the video before a third killer whale emerges from the depths carrying a nine-foot (2.7-meter) shark in its mouth.
As the Orca comes to the surface, blood blooms in the water.
According to Towner, Great White Shark carcasses that have washed ashore without their hearts or livers indicate that Orcas may be to blame for their deaths.
The video is the first concrete proof of the predation, though.
Towner recently wrote an essay for the African Journal of Marine Science that describes how Significant White Shark hunting by Orcas has caused a great migration of sharks away from locations where they were once abundant.