{"id":2190515,"date":"2026-03-23T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T05:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2190515"},"modified":"2026-03-21T07:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:35:15","slug":"as-the-great-whites-move-in-for-the-kill-the-seals-do-something-astonishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/as-the-great-whites-move-in-for-the-kill-the-seals-do-something-astonishing\/","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\u00a0seals\u00a0benefit 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:\u00a0great white sharks.<\/p>\n<p>These\u00a0apex predators\u00a0are 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\u00a0<em>Planet Earth III<\/em>, 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<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe id=\"320023568\" title=\"Great White Shark Mobbed by Gang Of Seals | Planet Earth III | BBC Earth\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ovBvGelWHIk?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discoverwildlife.com\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-129157385_7=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-16=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>As\u00a0David Attenborough\u00a0narrates, \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><em>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/tv\/great-white-shark-vs-seals-bbc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article<\/a> by Sophie Ellis was first published by Discover Wildlife on 20 March 2026. Lead Image:\u00a0Education Images \/ Contributor \/ Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>What you can do<\/h2>\n<p><em>Protect wildlife by making a monthly donation as little as $5.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/install-popup-button.js\" id=\"donorbox-popup-button-installer\"> <\/script><a id=\"preview_inline_popup_button\" class=\"dbox-donation-button\" style=\"background: #0dc5dc; color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; display: flex; gap: 8px; width: fit-content; font-size: 16px; border-radius: 5px; line-height: 24px; padding: 8px 24px;\" href=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/focusing-on-wildlife-needs-your-support?default_interval=m&amp;amount=25\" data-reminder-widget-enabled=\"true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">PROTECT WILDLIFE<\/a><script type=\"module\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/widgets.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It only takes a minute!<\/p>\n<hr style=\"border-top: 1px solid white;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the waters off Robberg, South Africa, Cape fur\u00a0seals\u00a0benefit from powerful ocean currents that bring in plentiful amounts of fish. 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. However, the huge shoals of fish also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2205873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-481653441.jpg?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[12649,9861,2938,10036,558,4626,4341],"class_list":["post-2190515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-david-attenborough","tag-fur-seals","tag-great-white-shark","tag-hunters","tag-predators","tag-seals","tag-sharks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}