The largest male white shark ever tagged in the western North Atlantic was just detected near a top East Coast tourist destination.
The GPS tracking device on the 14-foot-long shark known as “Contender” triggered an alert Thursday evening near North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The device pings a satellite when it is out of the water, helping the non-profit to track the sharks.
This time, it was not exposed long enough to determine Contender’s exact location, but a spokesperson for OCEARCH told The Sun the nearly 1,700-pound shark is likely heading up the East Coast as a part of sharks’ annual summer migration.
“White sharks in the western North Atlantic typically migrate north and spend the summer and early fall foraging in the waters of Cape Cod or Atlantic Canada,” the spokesperson said.
The region offers sharks comfortable water temperatures, and grey seals and large fish species to feast on.
Experts say that white sharks – white sharks and great white sharks are the same species – feed on schools of menhaden near the shore of New York’s Long Island, for example.
The last location for Contender was around the same area in April, when the tag stayed out of the water long enough for the researchers to pinpoint him.
Contender is a big white shark — but by no means the biggest.
Deep Blue, the largest known white shark who has been seen swimming off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, is around 20 feet and is estimated to weigh 4,500 pounds.
The inspiration behind the book that led to filmmaker Steven Spielberg’s 1975 summer blockbuster film Jaws, these sharks swim thousands of miles around the world.
Contender was first tagged in January last year off the coast of Florida and Georgia.
Since then, he’s traveled more than 7,000 miles in the Atlantic Ocean, swimming between Florida and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, off Canada.
The tag on Contender is expected to provide real-time data about his movements for five years.
“Every ping from Contender gives us a window into the life of a mature male white shark — how he moves, feeds and contributes to the population’s recovery,” Chris Fischer, OCEARCH’s founder, said in a release last year.
Contender was named in honor of the boat company Contender Boats, which partners with OCEARCH.
For more sharks, check out the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, which begins July 26.
