Sharks and Crocodile Feast on Dead Whale in First-Ever Video

Even the most fearsome predators can share—if there’s enough to
go around.

In September 2017, a charter company encountered a nearly
50-foot humpback carcass floating off Kimberley, in western Australia^[1]. A crew member deployed
a drone and posted the video to social media, where shark expert
Austin Gallagher^[2] spotted it—and knew he’d
found something unique.

A dead whale is a smorgasbord for many marine animals, drawing
diverse species that may not be commonly encountered together.
That’s why these scavenging events can be useful for scientists
gathering data about wildlife behavior, says Gallagher, chief
scientist and CEO of Beneath the Waves^[3], a shark-conservation
nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

The video shows that these species can scavenge on the same food
source at the same time without any or much fighting.

“The animals do seem to have a respect for one another,”
Gallagher says.

“Tiger sharks are known to be highly opportunistic, and
scavenging makes up a good portion of their diets,” notes Antonella Preti^[4], a trophic ecologist at
the Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California.

One possible reason there was no aggression between the species
is the size of the meal: A 20-ton animal means no shortage of
meat.

“If there is a large food source to scavenge, a shark will try
to get the most it can quickly before spending energy fighting,”
says Preti.

Gallagher also points out that the sharks in the video appear to
have already gorged themselves to the point of exhaustion. “Sharks
can only eat so much before it causes them to sink.”

Although a lot of biological research depends on mathematical
models, laboratory experiments, and sophisticated statistics,
sometimes luck offers a window into the natural world.

And the advent of aerial drones has made the possibility of
detecting and recording such events likelier.

“Your eyeballs are the two most valuable tools that any
scientist has,” Gallagher says. “Adding drones to the mix just
extends what our eyeballs can see.”