Viral SA video shows ocean-feeding frenzy, not dolphins protecting whale from sharks
- Published on August 22, 2024 at 13:02
- 3 min read
- By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa
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The 90-second video shows schools of dolphins and a breaching whale filmed from a boat as the ocean churns around them.
“This morning… A whale was giving birth in False Bay & attracted sharks,” reads a Facebook post shared more than 56,000 times since it was published on August 17, 2024. “Hundreds of dolphins then appeared out of nowhere and swam in circles around her keeping the sharks away.”
It claims the dolphins “stayed with her until she and her baby were safe and then they escorted them both to safety”.
Many of those commenting described the purported events as “amazing” and “a great story”.
Others, though, said the post was misleading people with an emotive tale to boost engagement.
Last year, AFP Fact Check debunked a post claiming the oceanic drama captured in the clip was regarded as “unusual” behaviour and a sign of an imminent natural disaster.
The latest claim has also taken the video out of context.
Feeding frenzy
When the video surfaced on social media last year, Facebook users in the comments section shared articles and videos from 2021 about a feeding frenzy near Cape Town off the coast of Fish Hoek, False Bay (archived here and here).
The clip is similar to others that were filmed on March 28, 2021, and shows shoals of sardines and anchovies in False Bay — a phenomenon known as the sardine run that attracts predators and many divers to the country (archived here, here and here).
“We saw the super-pod of dolphins and decided to follow them. As we were following them, the other half of the super-pod was spotted swimming in from Muizenberg beach,” Kade Tame told local online publication Cape Town Etc about the footage he recorded at the time (archived here).
“We then realised that it was the same pod and [they] were doing this for a reason (gathering fish). Before we knew it, there was white water everywhere and the most spectacular feeding began.”
While the video in the misleading 2024 post is not an exact match to Tame’s, it shows the same events from March 2021.
Similarities include a man wearing a pink shirt and red buff, the whale breaching and the same two yellow fishing rods next to a black one in the same place.
Cetaceans
Dolphins are social creatures and usually feed in hunting pods using a sophisticated technique to gather and eat fish (archived here).
They hunt in groups where each dolphin has a role: the dolphin encircles a school of fish and the other members of the pod create barriers to prevent the fish from escaping, which maximises the opportunity for all to feed.
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