Southern California’s exceptionally sharky year just took a graphic turn.
Wildlife cinematographer Carlos Gauna, better known as The Malibu Artist, captured remarkable drone footage showing multiple great white sharks consuming a dead dolphin off the Southern California coast. Gauna, who has spent years documenting white sharks from above, immediately recognized the encounter as something special. “I doubt I’ll ever document something as extraordinary as this,” he wrote.
According to Gauna, the dolphin was already dead when the sharks arrived. He described the scene as “an already dead dolphin” being “disposed of by 4 white sharks” in just over 18 minutes. From overhead, the sharks circle the carcass before moving in, tearing away large pieces as blood spreads through the water. What begins as a recognizable dolphin is rapidly reduced by the feeding predators. You’ve been warned: the video linked here and seen below is pretty brutal.
It is gruesome, but it’s also the food chain operating exactly as designed.
California wildlife officials note that adult white sharks eat a significantly broader menu than juveniles, including seals, sea lions, and dolphins, along with fish, other sharks and scavenged whale blubber. Juveniles, by comparison, primarily target rays and smaller fish.
That distinction is interesting in Gauna’s footage. Southern California has been loaded with young white sharks this year, aided by unusually warm El Niño conditions. Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab director Chris Lowe warned earlier this season that it was “gearing up to be a sharky summer,” explaining that warmer water was helping keep juveniles along the coast.
Related: Watch: Great White Shark Turns Nantucket Shallows into a Bloodbath
But several sharks in this feeding event appear substantially larger than the six-to-nine-foot juveniles commonly seen cruising Southern California’s beaches. No official measurements were provided.
Gauna’s work often shows white sharks swimming peacefully beneath surfers and swimmers, encounters people never even notice. His latest footage offers the other side.
Not sharks hunting humans. Not Jaws. Just apex predators doing what they’ve done for millions of years. And sometimes, nature gets bloody.
As Gauna stated:
“While it’s not easy to watch, it is the reality of our natural world, and a necessary event to keep the balance functioning.”
The circle of life.
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