Port and Starboard - South Africa's shark eating orcas

Along the coastline of South Africa, specifically along the southern coast of the Western Cape (my home for about 20 years), where cold Benguela currents carry life and death beneath the waves, two male orcas have earned a reputation that has shaken the apex-predator hierarchy. Their names? Port and Starboard.

Recognizable instantly by their unusual collapsed dorsal fins — one dipping left like the port side of a vessel, and the other right, like starboard — these two orcas have become legends. Not for breaking waves or gracing whale-watching brochures, but for doing something most orcas never attempt:

They hunt sharks.

And not just any sharks — Great white sharks

The last couple of years has seen an increased activity of orca in False Bay, mostly coming into the bay following huge pods of dolphins. Port and Starboard however seem to be apart form the other groups, especially as their hunting techniques and prey differ hugely. 

 

 

Why are Port & Starboard so extraordinary?

Orcas around the world are intelligent, adaptable, and strategic hunters. Some specialize in fish. Others target seals, rays, dolphins (like the others visiting the area) or even whales.
But Port & Starboard have developed a taste, and a method, that sets them apart.

They seek out sharks for one prize only — the liver.

A shark’s liver is vast, oily, and packed with energy-rich nutrients. These orcas execute their hunts with surgical precision, tearing into the belly with perfect technique, extracting the liver, and leaving the rest of the carcass almost untouched. The behaviour is so specialized that scientists believe it’s a learned skill — possibly cultural, passed between individuals like knowledge in a pod. However, not commonly seen, especially in these parts of the world. 

This predation has been recorded with broadnose sevengill sharks, bronze whalers, and most dramatically, the iconic Great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias).

Yes — even the feared Great white flees when these two arrive.

 

 

A changing ocean: When predators become prey

For decades, South Africa has been one of the most famous Great white hotspots on Earth. Cage-divers, researchers, and filmmakers travelled from across the world to witness these apex predators breach like torpedoes through the surface.

Then, something changed.

Sharks began to vanish from areas where they were once abundant — Gansbaai, False Bay, Mossel Bay. Sightings declined. Carcasses washed ashore, split open, livers missing.

Marine scientists traced the pattern.
Two names appeared again and again:

Port. Starboard.

The presence of these orcas is believed to be pushing white sharks away from their historic feeding grounds. This has cascading consequences — more seals, shifts in fish populations, altered coastal ecosystems. The ripple effect of two animals has become an ecological wave. Even impacting coastline businesses, relying on the residency and activity of the Great White.  

 

Intelligence, culture, and a future still unfolding

Orcas are social beings. They learn, they teach, they innovate.

When Starboard was recorded in 2023 killing a juvenile white shark alone, removing the liver in under two minutes, it marked a turning point in marine behavioural science. A hunting technique once thought to require a pair had evolved. Efficiency increased. Skill refined.

What does this mean for shark populations in the future?
For ecotourism?
For the marine food web?

We are watching the story unfold in real time — history written by teeth and instinct beneath the waves.

In recent months the re-appearance of some few individual Great Whites was cheered by the local human population - hopefully a sign of the rebalancing of a fragile equilibrium.   

 

A reminder from the sea

Nature is never static. It shifts, adapts, challenges our assumptions. Even the top of the food chain is never guaranteed.

Port & Starboard remind us of three striking truths:

Intelligence is a weapon.
Predator hierarchies are not fixed.
The ocean holds mysteries we are only beginning to understand.

They are symbols of evolution in motion — two shadows cutting through the kelp forests, rewriting the script of the Southern Ocean - and we get to witness history unfold.