{"id":341475,"date":"2026-03-22T00:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/341475\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T00:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T00:36:15","slug":"as-the-great-whites-move-in-for-the-kill-the-seals-do-something-astonishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/341475\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAs the great whites move in for the kill, the seals do something astonishing.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the waters off Robberg, South Africa, Cape fur <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/marine-animals\/why-do-seals-lie-like-bananas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">seals<\/a> benefit from powerful ocean currents that bring in plentiful amounts of fish.<\/p>\n<p>The Robberg Peninsula is home to thousands of this seal species, which is endemic to South Africa, who don\u2019t need to swim out too far for a meal.<\/p>\n<p>However, the huge shoals of fish also attract another animal to the waters: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/fish\/great-white-shark-guide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">great white sharks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>These <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/apex-predators-what-they-are\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apex predators<\/a> are usually solitary hunters but have been gathering in larger, \u201cunprecedented\u201d numbers at Robberg.<\/p>\n<p>And during filming for the BBC TV series Planet Earth III, the seals (and their pups) initially seem trapped. But the crew then capture the moment the seals engineer a remarkable manoeuvre in order to drive the sharks away and save themselves.<\/p>\n<p>As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/people\/david-attenborough-facts\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">David Attenborough<\/a> narrates, \u201cThe tables are turning. By sheer force of numbers, these fur seals drive the world\u2019s most notorious predator back out to sea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Top image: a great white shark near the surface off the coast of Gansbaai, South Africa. Credit: Education Images\u00a0\/\u00a0Contributor \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the waters off Robberg, South Africa, Cape fur seals benefit from powerful ocean currents that bring in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-341475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}