{"id":2190903,"date":"2026-05-08T06:00:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T05:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2190903"},"modified":"2026-05-02T13:12:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T12:12:34","slug":"each-seal-is-swimming-for-its-life-these-seals-must-cross-shark-infested-waters-to-find-a-meal-will-they-make-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/each-seal-is-swimming-for-its-life-these-seals-must-cross-shark-infested-waters-to-find-a-meal-will-they-make-it\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cEach seal is swimming for its life.\u201d These seals must cross shark-infested waters to find a meal. Will they make it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC\u2019s\u00a0<em>Planet Earth<\/em>\u00a0series has captured plenty of unprecedented animal behaviour, from a deep-sea vampire squid glowing in the dark to a hungry\u00a0polar bear risking the tusks of a walrus\u00a0to secure a meal.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2013 as this water is patrolled by one of the\u00a0ocean\u2019s most powerful apex predators.<\/p>\n<p>As\u00a0David Attenborough\u00a0narrates, \u201cEach seal is indeed swimming for its life.\u201d<\/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=\"22147289\" title=\"Great Whites Hunt Cape Fur Seals | 20 Years of Planet Earth | BBC Earth\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s3u8_dajPE4?start=10&amp;feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discoverwildlife.com\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-129157385_7=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-12=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-17=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>But as marine biologist Justin Blake writes on a\u00a0BBC blog about working on\u00a0<em>Planet Earth III<\/em>, this behaviour is not likely to be seen today. The sharks filmed in the above sequence are\u00a0no longer found in the coastal waters of False Bay, Gansbaai or Mossel Bay.<\/p>\n<p>While sharks are relatively tricky to study, it\u2019s widely thought that these sharks have moved into the waters of the Robberg Peninsula \u2013 where another incredible sequence was filmed for\u00a0<em>Planet Earth III<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/tv\/bbc-planet-earth-seals-shark-infested-waters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article\u00a0<\/a><\/em><em>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.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Help to protect wildlife<\/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>The BBC\u2019s\u00a0Planet Earth\u00a0series has captured plenty of unprecedented animal behaviour, from a deep-sea vampire squid glowing in the dark to a hungry\u00a0polar bear risking the tusks of a walrus\u00a0to 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, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2206042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-628490620.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[9862,2938,1117,4341,2532],"class_list":["post-2190903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-cape-fur-seals","tag-great-white-shark","tag-polar-bear","tag-sharks","tag-walrus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190903","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=2190903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}