Grim discovery on Victoria beach after great white shark was found missing half its body

Beachgoers were shocked to discover the remains of a four-metre-long great white shark washed up on shore with half of its body missing.

The body of the three-metre shark was discovered by locals on Tuesday at Bridgewater Beach near Cape Bridgewater, about 370km south-west of Melbourne.

Footage taken by local fisherman Ben Johnstone shows the dead shark lying on the sand.

The lower part of the animal’s body appears to have been torn apart, with only the upper part of the body still intact.

Orcas are suspected of mauling the great white shark before its body washed ashore.

The body of the great white shark (pictured) was found by locals on Bridgewater beach on Tuesday

Mr Johnstone told Daily Mail Australia he came to the beach after a friend told him about the gruesome discovery.

“I got a tip… that it could be out there,” Mr Johnstone said.

‘I (had) no idea what had happened’.

Mr Johnstone, bait shop manager at Portland Bait and Tackle, said the shark could have been attacked by killer whales looking for food.

He said the whales were spotted close to the beach a few days before the shark washed ashore.

“It probably happened in between when they were spotted in the area… when it washed up on the beach,” he said.

“The carcass was pretty fresh when I went there.”

Mr Johnstone said killer whales hunt sharks to get at some of the meat, but bizarrely do not eat the rest of the animal.

“They (orcas) eat the liver of white sharks, that’s the only part they eat,” he said.

“The head and pretty much everything else remained pretty much intact… they just want the livers.”

Parts of the animal were torn apart (pictured) in a savage attack believed to have been carried out by pods of killer whales

Local fisherman Ben Johnstone (pictured) said he was told the shark had washed up on the beach by a friend before he went to look on Tuesday.

Parts of the shark’s carcass were taken for testing.

Flinders University trophic ecologist Lauren Meyer told the ABC Orcas, along with other whale species, have a particular predilection for the internal organs of sharks.

“We see this with things like humpback whales, where orcas come in and basically eat the tongue and leave the rest of the whale,” she said.

‘We definitely see them preferring the liver of white sharks, mako sharks, bronze whalers and sevengill sharks, and even tiger sharks.

Ms Meyer said killer whales are known to only hunt certain types of food and each group of whales behaves differently, making them very difficult to analyze by marine experts.

“They are relatively elusive and each group and ecotype exhibits such specific behavior that it is difficult to draw conclusions about all killer whales because they all behave so differently,” says Meyer.

Experts say that orcas, along with other whale species, have a particular predilection for the internal organs (pictured) of sharks.

Mr Johnstone said killer whales occasionally visit Portland Bay.

“You know, and then those whales will show up here…you won’t see them again for a few years,” he said.

“They stick around for about two weeks.”

He said it’s the first time he’s seen a shark carcass washed up on the beach, mauled as it was.

“I’ve seen it on TV before, but to see it locally is pretty cool.”