Ever since Jaws, great whites have had a reputation as killing machines that has never seemed much point questioning.

However, that could all be about to change – after a study into the fearsome predators’ dining habits.

Scientists towed a 36ft Brydes whale carcass into a well-known hunting ground for the animals in an exercise aimed at documenting how they tackled the huge free lunch.

And these amazing pictures show how up to 30 of them stripped a single whale carcass – and gave an ‘extraordinary’ insight into how the much-feared predators behave.

But while many would have expected a feeding frenzy and potentially lethal fights between the razor-teethed gians, the behaviour observed was quite different.

The sharks appeared to select choice cuts of the dead whale and did not appear to be aggressive towards each other.

Free lunch: The 30 great white sharks were provided with a whale carcass so scientists could study their eating habits

Tasty findings: Alison Kock was the principal scientist at Save Our Seas Shark Centre and Shark Spotting Programme, at Cape Town in South Africa and was surprised by the sharks

Alison Kock, 33, the principal scientist at Save Our Seas Shark Centre and Shark Spotting Programme, at Cape Town South Africa, said: ‘Contrary to their reputation as mindless killers, the level of selectivity for which parts of the dead whale they ate was extraordinary.

‘They targeted the energy-rich blubber, often making repeated “test bites” where no flesh was removed, and removing flesh only once they had determined it was what they wanted. If they got a mouthful of muscle, they often spat it out.

‘They were very picky.’

It’s thought the huge whale was killed after being struck by a boat and was found floating towards Miller’s Point near Cape Town, South Africa, where the clean up operation for the local authorities would have been difficult as their huge bodies are harder to remove on land.

It was also feared the body – giving off oils that attract predators like sharks – may have drawn in great whites to an area frequented by swimmers.

Kock added: ‘Permission was granted by the authorities to have the dead whale towed to nearby Seal Island where the carcass was less of an issue and the sharks could help solve the clean-up problem.

‘In addition it provided an unparalleled opportunity to document white shark behaviour and record the number of sharks in the area.

‘Whale carcasses are believed to be a very important source of food for white sharks with some scientific evidence suggesting they follow whale migrations possibly to, opportunistically feed on dead or sick whales.’

Jaws: Alison Koch said: ‘Contrary to their reputation as mindless killers, the level of selectivity for which parts of the dead whale they ate was extraordinary’

Blubber: During the nine-day experiment Kock and her team made some shocking discoveries, including the fact that the sharks seemed to have a huge preference for soft blubber over tough muscle

During the nine-day experiment, which ended on Saturday, Kock and her team made some shocking discoveries, including the fact that the sharks seemed to have a huge preference for soft blubber over tough muscle.

‘In the case of the whale carcass the sharks knew exactly what they wanted,’ said Kock.

‘It provides evidence that when they bite into a surfboard, or kayak or person wearing a wetsuit they can immediately determine it’s not something they want to eat.

‘It’s very common in attacks on humans for white sharks to take a single bite and leave it at that. Our study provides more evidence that they are simply tasting and looking for meat that is nutritious. It shows that they are not just swimming around mindlessly eating everything they come across, as they are sometimes portrayed.’

She added: ‘I was surprised at the total number of white sharks that fed on the dead whale over the nine days we documented the event. We recorded over 30 different sharks in total. At one stage we had up to four white sharks feeding simultaneously on the carcass.

‘The first two days were the busiest with the most sharks, and the activity slowly decreased as the sharks had their fill. The last two days we recorded no sharks feeding on the carcass.

‘Many of the sharks I recognised as individuals hunting seals around the island from this shark season, as well as previous years. We used their unique dorsal fins to identify them, but there were also new sharks that I had never seen before.

‘The sharks showed very little aggression towards one another in the presence of such a large food source, often feeding side by side.

‘Some of the sharks we observed were gorging on the blubber and you could actually see their bellies getting fuller.

“Some would arrive quite skinny and by the end of their session they looked pregnant with their bellies bulging.’

During the study, the sharks reduced the carcass down to less than seven feet (two metres) of bone and muscle, having removed all the blubber.

Shark enthusiast Kock, added: ‘This is the ultimate example of the very important role sharks play in the ecosystem. That of recycling life, and of keeping our oceans healthy by removing dead and decaying animals like dead whales.’

via Shark attack: Incredible pictures of 30 great whites stripping a whale carcass provide ‘extraordinary’ insight into eating habits | Mail Online.

Nicholas Edwards, the father-of-two who died after being attacked by a large shark in Western Australia’s world famous Margaret River surfing region had recently moved his family to Busselton from the Eastern States.

Dunsborough police Sergeant Craig Anderson said 31-year-old Mr Edwards was a fly-in, fly-out miner on his last day of leave when he was attacked 300 metres from the South Point surf break south of Cowaramup Bay, near Gracetown.

Police have notified Mr Edwards’ wife and two children, aged seven and two.

via Shark attack in Gracetown | Surfer Dead | Western Australia.

A 12-year-old girl died Tuesday after falling into floodwaters near Flagstaff, Arizona, authorities said.

Shaelyn Wilson had gone to see runoff from a flash flood around 2 p.m., according to the Coconino Sheriff’s Department. A younger sister ran back to tell the father that Shaelyn had fallen into a wash.

The family searched the area near where the girl fell and several agencies also took part in the search, according to Kelli Most, administrative specialist with the sheriff’s department.

The girl was found about a third of a mile from where she went into the water, and her father performed CPR until paramedics arrived. She was pronounced dead at Flagstaff Medical Center.

A massive wildfire last month made the area susceptible to flooding, said Most. “There’s just no greenery there” to prevent runoff, she said. The blaze charred 15,000 acres.

Several small streams pushed over their banks, and flash floods were threatening homes, according to CNN affiliate KPHO.

via Arizona girl, 12, dies in flooding – CNN.com.

A Chihuahua died Sunday afternoon in the jaws of two pit bulls after they entered its south Richmond home and approached its owner’s newborn child, police say.

“The pit bulls apparently entered the residence through an open front door and approached a 22-day-old infant, whom the mom had been feeding,” said Dan Barrett, deputy director of the Contra Costa Animal Services department. “The family has a Chihuahua that confronted them. Of course, they focused their attention on the small dog.”

The larger animals seized the Chihuahua in their jaws and carried it out of the house, on the 300 block of South 7th Street. Authorities later found it dead nearby.

Richmond police officers responding to several 911 calls about the attack beginning at 4:35 p.m., and tracked the pit bulls to a home on the 300 block of South 4th Street, Sgt. Bisa French said. No people were hurt.

The owner did not surrender the dogs for euthanization, meaning Animal Services will conduct an investigation and may hold a hearing in a future to decide what to do with them.

County ordinance allows owners of animals accused of violent behavior an administrative hearing before the agency imposes fines, monitoring requirement or euthanization.

The family of the Chihuahua could not be reached for comment.

via Chihuahua died defending newborn from pit bulls in Richmond – San Jose Mercury News.

The wife and daughter of a Park Ridge man fatally mauled by a grizzly bear in Wyoming voiced anger today at a research team that snared and collared the bear involved in last week’s attack.

Countering authorities’ account of the mauling, the family of Erwin Evert says he knew little about what the research team was doing and did not go looking for the team’s trap site during the hike that ended with his death.

“He just knew they were doing some sort of research. He had no idea they were going to be baiting, trapping and collaring bears in our backyard,” said his daughter, Mara Evert Domingue of Louisiana.

“If he had known that, he never would have walked up that trail.”

The danger should have been more clearly marked, his family said.

For weeks before the attack, a yellow ribbon warned about a dangerous bear along the trail Evert walked, his family said. But there were no other warning signs, and Evert and his neighbors were never told specifically about the activities of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, a group of state and federal agencies that monitor the local bears, his family said.

Evert did not go past the warning ribbon before the day of the attack, said his widow, Yolanda Evert. She said she isn’t sure where her husband encountered the bear, but she said she doesn’t think he would have disregarded the warning and walked past the tape.

“He was curious about it, but he wouldn’t go beyond that. He stayed on the trail,” she said.

Authorities have said the research team collared a 430-pound male bear and left the area near Yellowstone National Park about two miles from Evert’s cabin around 1 p.m. June 17. Evert went for a walk just before 1 p.m. and was found dead hours later. A sharpshooter later killed the bear from a helicopter.

Scott Steward, the sheriff of Park County, Wyo., said Evert questioned the bear research team and was “very inquisitive about their work.” Evert told a friend he planned to look for the trap site, Steward said.

“We’re not dealing with a case where someone didn’t know (the trap site) was there,” the sheriff said Wednesday. “The victim definitely knew it was there.”

via Family: Botanist killed by bear not aware of full danger – Chicago Breaking News.

A B.C. man is recovering from shock after narrowly avoiding a grizzly bear attack in Robson Valley, southeast of Prince George.

Leon Lorenz, a wildlife filmmaker from Dunster, had been following grizzly bear tracks and filming the animals feeding in the forested area for the last six weeks. Last Monday afternoon, he spotted a mother bear with her back to him about 23 metres away. He immediately put his camera down and started recording.

Lorenz said he had moved his camera slightly to get a better view. That was when the 400-pound bear caught his scent.

She sniffed the air, then turned around and looked right at him, he said. She quickly wheeled around a spruce tree about four metres away, and reappeared with her cub behind her, roaring and charging at high speed toward Lorenz.

The critical events after that, said Lorenz, occurred in about 20 seconds.

He remembers instinctively throwing his camera into wide-angle mode so it would capture all the action, before whipping out his handgun to fire a warning shot.

“I was blinded because she was zigzagging in and out between the trees — I didn’t know if she was going to come at me from the right or the left,” he said. “I had no target.”

Lorenz aimed high and pulled the trigger — right when the bear came crashing through the branches several feet away. Spooked, she turned back around with her cub and ran off, said Lorenz.

“If I had waited a split-second later, she would have had me,” he said. “She was a blur, going by me, she was so fast. Even if I had hit her, her momentum would have carried her forward. She was running on so much adrenalin, she would have made sure I was dead before she died, and her cub probably would have attacked, too.”

He said he has filmed this particular grizzly twice before — once at 18 metres apart, another at 45 metres.

Both times, he was able to stay out of sight so that even when the bear could smell him, she had no way of locating him.

Lorenz, a father of two sons, said he has encountered many bears before in his 19 years of filmmaking in the wild, but he has never been attacked by them. This was the first time he has had to use his handgun to protect himself. “God’s hand was on that gun,” he said. “The timing couldn’t have been more perfect — she was out to kill me.”

via Filmmaker fends off grizzly attack with handgun.

Food and garbage abandoned at a campsite in Mineral County likely attracted a black bear that bit a Washington man on the head early Monday, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Rob Holmes, of Ellensburg, Wash., required 21 stitches on his earlobe after the bear bit him through his tent around 4:30 a.m., as he and a friend slept up Little Joe Road just southwest of St. Regis.

Holmes’ injuries were not life-threatening, and he and his friend had left for home by Monday afternoon.

After the bear bit Holmes, the man screamed. He then grabbed a flashlight and tried to follow it before driving to a Missoula hospital.

“It reacted to people, which is good,” said Mack Long, FWP regional supervisor. “But the downside is that once it is habituated, it’s almost impossible to change.”

Holmes kept a clean camp, Long said, but other campers left behind food and other attractants at the U.S. Forest Service campground, which is “primitive” and not a sanctioned campground.

“He did everything right,” said Jeff Darrah, FWP warden captain in Missoula.

The FWP is currently attempting to track down the bear, which will be euthanized once it’s found. In the meantime, the camping area is closed until further notice.

FWP officials said the radius and patterns of the bite marks on Holmes and in his tent were identical to those found on cans of food and other items at the nearby abandoned campsite.

It is unknown how long that campsite had been abandoned, but the bear likely had visited the site for at least a couple of nights, said Long. It likely was a temporary campsite for transients, he said.

Long put all blame on the campers who abandoned their site and left food and other items behind. He said “attack” is not the correct word for the incident, which will unfortunately lead to a dead bear.

Long said he believes it is the only reported case of a human injury caused by a bear in western Montana this year.

The message is clear, he stressed: Don’t leave food and other attractants open at a campsite, and never leave food behind.

via Black bear bites through tent, into sleeping man’s ear near St. Regis.

Some of you might remember that I have said previously that every year in the Cody, WY area there is one or more human versus grizzly encounters. Here is the current one thanks to KULR 8 News television broadcasting from Billings, MT. This is my “backyard” and part of where I have hunted for the last 30 years.

(Story Updated: Jun 18, 2010 at 1:24 PM MDT )

Press Release from Park County Sheriff’s Department:

At approximately 6:48 PM on June 17th the Park County Sheriff’s Office was notified that a subject had possibly been mauled and killed by a grizzly bear in the Kitty Creek Drainage located in the Shoshone National Forest west of Cody.

The victim, 70 year old Erwin Frank Evert of Cody was reported missing by his wife to Chad Dickinson, a member of the USGS Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) based out of Bozeman. Dickinson and his team were working within the Kitty Creek Drainage snaring grizzly bears for research. Dickinson rode back up Kitty Creek to an area where earlier they had caught a large adult male grizzly. Once at the capture sight, Dickinson found Evert dead as a result of fatal injuries caused by an encounter with the bear.

At approximately 8:30 PM Wardens of the Wyoming Game and Fish and a Park County Sheriff’s Deputy located Evert approximately 2 miles from the road in a remote rugged area. Park County Sheriff Search and Rescue was called in and Evert’s body was removed while Wardens provided armed security. The recovery was completed at approximately 12:18am on June 18th.

At this time it appears that members of IGBST had captured the bear and tranquilized the bear for research purposes, put a radio collar on the bear and then packed up their equipment and left the area. At some point Evert wandered into the capture area where he was fatally wounded. Evert was not armed nor was he carrying bear spray.

On June 18th The US Forest Service issued a closure order for the Kitty Creek Drainage. Game Wardens, US Fish and Wildlife Agents and USFS Law Enforcement Agents are diligently searching the area for the bear with the aid of an electronic tracking device. If located the fate of the bear will be determined by US Fish and Wildlife Agents.

via Bear attacks again | Field & Stream.

A 70-year-old man was killed by lightning Sunday near Meeteetse, Wyo., officials said.

Robert Jesse Gurney of Torrington, Wyo., was fishing with his son at Upper Sunshine Reservoir when he was struck by lightning, said Park County Sheriff Scott Seward.

Emergency responders were dispatched at 1:18 p.m. Bystanders performed CPR on Gurney but were unable to resuscitate him. He was pronounced dead at an area hospital.

He and Richard Gurney of Lovell, Wyo., were leaving the reservoir because of lightning when the elder Gurney was hit, Seward said.

via Lightning strike kills man near Meeteetse.

SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, Fla. (WSVN) — A teen is recovering in the hospital after a spider bite became infected.

Las week, Dillion Poulos was helping remodel his uncle's kitchen. “We were putting up new panels and stuff and that's when I felt a sting,” Poulos said.

The teen has been at the hospital since last Friday because of the severity of his wound, a big open sore where his flesh have been eaten by the poison. “I felt a sting on my leg and I pulled my pant leg up and it was just a little red mark,” said Poulos.

That little red mark turned into a gaping hole. “It was painful,” he said.

Doctors at Baptist Hospital determined that the sting was the bite of a poisonous spider, the dangerous Brown Recluse. “What happens is that it almost starts eating away at the tissue,” said Dr. Doris Aguilar.

It took the teen two days to realize something was terribly wrong. “I squeezed it and a little bit of puss came out. When I woke up it was all sore and blistered and nasty,” he recalled.

This spider is uncommon in Florida, but doctors believe his family has had unusual run-ins with the rare Recluse before.

“Apparently the mother has been bitten several times and she actually witnessed a brown hairy spider. You can't hardly tell right now, it's just a little bump,” Aguilar said.

As if the spider bite wasn't bad enough, the MRSA Virus also got into the wound, which made treating Poulos that much more difficult. “When they first told me I was like, 'Oh my God. I could be dead,' but thank God I'm still here.”

Doctors said if you get a spider bite, you shouldn't panic. Just don't scratch or pick at it, because that's usually how they get infected. If you notice that it is spreading go see your doctor.

As far as Poulos there is no anti-venom for a Brown Relcuse bite, all they can do is wash it out and give antibiotics, but after being here for a week he will be released on Friday.

via WSVN-TV – Teen recovering from spider bite.