Savage moment orca sinks teeth into stingray in Nelson

  • 30/11/2017

A Kiwi YouTuber has captured the astonishing moment an orca whale successfully captured a stingray at his local beach.

The footage, taken from a drone hovering over shallow waters in Nelson's Ruby Bay, shows the orca chowing down on a stingray as the sea around it fills with blood.

Damon Ward, better known by his moniker Clay Tall Stories, captured the video and shared it to his YouTube channel on Monday.

He said the feeding frenzy is not an uncommon sight at this time of the year.

"Each year in spring the big eagle rays and stingrays come into the bay where I live in NZ," he said.

"The orca feed on the stingray, catching them head first or grabbing the tip of their tails to avoid their deadly stingers.

While the hunting of stingrays by orcas is not a rarity where Mr Ward is, he says it is a feeding habit distinctive to the waters around our island nation.

"New Zealand is the only place in the world where orca feeds on the stingray," he said.

"The stingray has been known to kill the orca with their barbed stings."

Newshub.