These whales sometimes bear round sucker marks on their skin from their battles with the big cephalopods. A 36-foot long squid was once found in a sperm whale's stomach. Researchers also recovered a 10-foot blue shark from the stomach of a large male. And that's why it isn't likely sharks caused the death of the young Oahu sperm whale. But that's normal for any carcass drifting in the ocean.
Sharks are part of nature's recycling system.
Since killer whales can eat just about anything they come across, they occasionally attack and kill a sperm whale. People once attacked and killed sperm whales relentlessly, but sperm whales didn't usually go down without a fight. This is, after all, the legendary species that sent sailors flying through the air, smashed their whaleboats and killed Captain Ahab. Commercial hunting of sperm whales began in 1712 when people discovered that the material in the whales' heads made good lamp oil. The most intense hunting came during the Yankee whaling era of the 1800s and the factory ship whaling of this century.