When the prey becomes the predator: Sea lion rips apart a SHARK off the coast of California in video captured by beachgoers

Video: A monster captures prey and turns into a predator.

A retired nurse captured the moment a large sea lion ripped out the throat of a blue shark in CaliforniaMonterey Bay.

The short clip shows the sea lion throwing the smaller shark out of the water and tearing off part of its jaw before swallowing it.

“Sharks are definitely on the menu,” a representative of a local marine mammal conservation non-profit, the Marine Mammal Conservation Centre, told DailyMail.com.

But he added: “I would definitely say it’s interesting to see a sea lion with a blue shark that size (…) It’s always interesting to see a sea lion eating something larger than a bite size.”

It’s common to see California’s coastal sea lion population eating small fish, such as sardines, according to marine scientists, although violent fighting between sea lions and sharks is not unusual.

The blue shark’s most dangerous predator is usually human fishermen engaged in “finning”, the wasteful trade that sees fishermen collect shark fins and dump the finless shark carcasses back into the sea.

Blue sharks, sometimes called great blue sharks, are the most overfished on the planet, according to the nonprofit Shark trust.

This species is listed as not completely endangered but “near threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.Red list.’

“There were a lot more blue sharks,” said Dave Bader, chief operations and education officer at the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro, California.

“Blue sharks are a natural occurrence in these waters,” Badr told DailyMail.com. “But it is one of the species that has been severely depleted by shark fishing.”

According to a marine biologist Dr. Chris Lowedirector of the Shark Lab at California State University, Long Beach, says sea lions are not uncommon predators of sharks, although they pose a much less existential threat than “finning removal” practices.

“People don’t think about marine mammals eating sharks,” Lowe says He told reporters During an equally horrific battle in 2015 between a sea lion and a thresher shark, “but it’s actually fairly common.”

But sea lions are “opportunistic feeders,” according to Bader at the Marine Mammal Care Center, and typically go for smaller, easier prey.

“Here at the Marine Mammal Care Centre, we feed them herring,” Bader told DailyMail.com. “Most of the time, the sea lions here will locally eat small fish such as sardines, anchovies and mackerel.”

But large male sea lions are known to eat salmon; They are known to eat stingrays and large halibut, he noted.

“The behavior is when you surface, and you see him hitting the shark in the air — because he can’t swallow it whole.”

According to Bader, large sea lions will drag a creature to the surface because it is easier to swing and tear apart their prey in the open air.

While this great blue shark is a suitable opponent against an adult sea lion, many other species of sharks are more vulnerable prey.

“We tend to think of sharks as big, dangerous things. You know, they’re the predator, not the prey,” Bader said.

“But for most shark species, they are the prey.”

Most sharks are less than three feet long, according to Bader, and 80 percent of them are less than six feet long.

“So a fairly small percentage of sharks get bigger, and a smaller percentage of them pose a risk to anyone,” he said. “Just because it’s a shark doesn’t mean it’s an apex predator.”

In this fatal encounter Caught on video By marine photographer Loriana Hespe On October 20, the most surprising aspect to an experienced observer like Bader was that the blue shark did not swim away.

When DailyMail.com asked Bader about the “most surprising” encounter he had ever seen between a sea lion and a shark, the operations manager at the Marine Mammal Care Center said: “That’s one of them, for sure.”

“They can swim faster and dive deeper, perhaps than a sea lion,” Bader said. “So the fact that it was hunted by a sea lion is interesting.”