South Africa’s great white sharks appear to be on the move. There have been no sightings of the predators off Cape Town since 2019, say researchers, after a peak of 300 sightings in 2011. But a recent study suggests that the overall population remains stable – shark numbers have simply shifted from the Western Cape province up to the Eastern Cape. Why? Possible reasons include environmental factors like water temperature and food availability. But the researchers also point to an increasing number of killer whale attacks on great whites, where the orcas have developed a taste for shark livers, as another reason for the sharks to relocate.
