Overview
- Scientists published video evidence of two hunts in 2020 and 2022 that resulted in three juvenile great white shark deaths, with findings released in Frontiers in Marine Science on Nov. 3, 2025.
- The attacking group, identified as Moctezuma’s pod, worked in teams of about five to push sharks to the surface, flip them to induce tonic immobility, and then share the energy‑rich livers.
- The authors emphasize that the sample is small and that they cannot yet determine the frequency of these events or whether juvenile white sharks are a regular or seasonal target.
- The team proposes that warming conditions and El Niño may be shifting white shark nursery areas toward the Gulf of California, potentially increasing encounters, but they describe this as a tentative hypothesis.
- Prior cases in South Africa show orcas targeting adult great whites and extracting livers, underscoring group‑specific learned tactics that can alter shark distributions and affect coastal ecosystems.