Great white shark captured taking down 32-foot humpback whale in ‘strategic kill’

While nature is known to follow a certain order, that doesn’t mean that irregularities and novel occurrences cannot take place.

Such was the case back in 2020 off the southern coast of South Africa when, to the shock of the observing marine biologist, a great white shark hunted and killed a humpback whale that was well over twice its size.

Marine biologist Ryan Johnson analyzed the shark's behavior, noting that it was calculated and cerebral with its attack on the 32-foot-long whale.

“The shark was very strategic about it, there was no hesitation. It was as if she knew exactly how to go about it,” Johnson explained to The Times.

"The first strike was at the whale's tail… She managed to open a vein and blood immediately started pluming out.”

Johnson was vaguely familiar with the shark, as he and a group of researchers encountered her years prior in 2013. At that time, they gave her the name Helen.

Johnson also observed that the whale was already in poor health before the shark attack, meaning it was easier for the shark to succeed in its hunt

At merely 13 feet long - a relatively small size for a female great white shark - Helen’s attack was unexpected and could’ve been disastrous for her had she attacked a humpback whale in better health.

National Geographic

However, despite the whale’s weakened state, the victory did not come easy for the shark, with the encounter reportedly lasting an entire 50 minutes before the whale finally passed.

“Helen looked very informed about what she was doing,” Johnson noted, “which made me curious about whether she was an experienced whale killer, was acting on instinct or on plain intelligence by detecting her prey was weak.”

Eventually, Helen killed the whale by taking it under the water and drowning it, never to be seen by the marine biologist again.

This marked the first recorded instance of a singular great white shark killing an adult humpback whale.

Getty Stock Image

In fact, it is far more common for a humpback whale to attack a great white shark, making this whole ordeal something of an anomaly between the two species.

Another instance of a similar situation took place in 2015 when a group of 20 sharks attacked a baby humpback whale.

The immaturity of the baby humpback negated the obvious size advantage that the adults of that species possess over great white sharks, making it a far more understandable circumstance than Helen’s attack on the whale this year.