Incredible footage has emerged of a group of sharks feeding on the carcass of a sperm whale just off the coast of Coffs Harbour, on the NSW North Coast.
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Up to three large great white sharks and two tiger sharks were seen feasting for hours on the juvenile whale's carcass, which was floating about a kilometre off Sapphire Beach on Thursday.
Recreational divers who had set out for a day on the water came across the remarkable scene and turned their cameras on the powerful creatures, some thought to be up to 4½ metres long, as they tore shreds out of the whale.
The scene unfolded on the same day that a great white shark attacked a bodyboarder at Ballina, 200 kilometres north of Sapphire Beach, leaving the 32-year-old man fighting for his life.
The great white sharks were shown often turning on their backs to get a better bite out of the whale's blubber.
While such a scenario would take place regularly far out to sea, it was unusual to capture footage of it so close to shore, Australian Museum naturalist Martyn Robinson said.
Sergeant Don Stewart, from Coffs Harbour Water Police, said recreational fishers had alerted police after seeing a number of sharks gathering around the whale carcass.
Water Police officers took a boat out to monitor the situation and witnessed the "unbelievable" scene from just metres away.
"I've been in this job for a long time and, while I've seen them feeding before, it's probably the closest that I've been to sharks that are actually feeding like that," Sergeant Stewart said.
The carcass, which Sergeant Stewart said appeared to have been in the water for some time, washed up on Sapphire Beach overnight, its jaw bone stripped bare and large chunks torn from its body.
He said officers from the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Coffs Harbour City Council were disposing of the carcass, which would be buried.
Mr Robinson said the sharks' anatomy meant they had to manoeuvre their bodies to get a good bite of the whale.
"If you look at where a shark's mouth is positioned, it's actually underslung from the end of the nose," he said.
"If it comes straight up to the whale carcass, its nose is going to hit the body of the whale first before the mouth does, so they have to angle their heads or angle their body in order to get the best purchase to get a good bite out of it."
He said sharks had a "supremely good sense of smell" and could have picked up the whale's scent from kilometres away.
Great white sharks also had delicate teeth, he said, so a whale carcass was ideal for them to eat.
"It's rich and blubbery and, for the size of the animal, there's relatively few bones," he said.
"They will eat washbasin-size lumps of meat at a time, it's a big bite that they have."
Mr Robinson said sperm whales were usually found in deeper waters further off Australia's coast, where they fed on giant squid.
"It's unusual to see one just off the coast but, by the same token, we have no idea how far it has drifted in the current. It could have died some distance away and just been drifting," he said.
The whale was 11 metres long, the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service said.
