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SOUTH AFRICA — Everyone is familiar with the concept of strength in numbers, but does it still apply when that strength is being directed toward one of the ocean's most feared predators?
If you ask a brave contingent of seals that call the waters off the South African coast home, the answer would be a resounding yes.
Video footage captured by BBC Earth for the wildly popular show "Planet Earth" shows a gang of seals embracing a group mentality to ward off their biggest predator — literally and figuratively — the great white shark.
"Seals risk their lives every time they set out to eat," David Attenborough, host of "Planet Earth," can be heard saying. "Powerful ocean currents attract huge shoals of fish, but in recent years this stretch has attracted increased numbers of great whites, too."
Unusually, the sharks in the video appear to be hunting in packs, sometimes a dozen at a time. Attenborough called this behavior "unprecedented."
This video, however, shows quite the contrast from your typical "Shark Week" programming and, as a great white moves closer to shore in search of what it hopes will be its next meal, the seals decide to fight back.
"Together, they turn on their enemy. As more join, the mob grows in both number and confidence," Attenborough says, as 20-plus seals converge on a retreating great white shark. "The tables are turning. By sheer force of numbers, these fur seals drive the world's most notorious predator back out to sea."
Strength in numbers, indeed.
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