The BBC’s Planet Earth series has captured plenty of unprecedented animal behaviour, from a deep-sea vampire squid glowing in the dark to a hungry polar bear risking the tusks of a walrus to secure a meal.
And the original 2006 series captured an incredible first-of-its-kind, slow-motion sequence of great white sharks hunting fur seals off Cape Town.
Each dawn, the seals must leave their colony to cross a narrow strip of water in search of food. But each time they do, they risk their lives – as this water is patrolled by one of the ocean’s most powerful apex predators.
As David Attenborough narrates, “Each seal is indeed swimming for its life.”
But as marine biologist Justin Blake writes on a BBC blog about working on Planet Earth III, this behaviour is not likely to be seen today. The sharks filmed in the above sequence are no longer found in the coastal waters of False Bay, Gansbaai or Mossel Bay.
While sharks are relatively tricky to study, it’s widely thought that these sharks have moved into the waters of the Robberg Peninsula – where another incredible sequence was filmed for Planet Earth III.
This article by Sophie Ellis was first published by Discover Wildlife on 27 April 2026. Lead Image: A great white shark breaching to hunt a seal. Credit: USO/Getty Images.
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