Huge Nice White Shark Pings Off Nantucket Coast: Monitor Its Actions

A colossal nice white shark just lately surfaced off the coast of New England — and has continued to lurk alongside the Atlantic shoreline this summer time, researchers mentioned.

The 13-foot-9-inch specimen, dubbed “Contender,” weighs 1,653 kilos, marking the biggest male white shark ever tagged within the western Atlantic by OCEARCH, a nonprofit marine analysis group.

The apex predator, first tagged in January roughly 45 miles off the Florida-Georgia coast, surfaced once more final Friday about 50 miles east of Nantucket, Massachusetts, between Nantucket Shoals and Georges Bank. His beacon has not pinged since.

“Contender’s second ping on July 18 shows that he’s now about 62 miles east of Nantucket Island,” OCEARCH knowledge scientist John Tyminski instructed Newsweek in an announcement Thursday. “This movement north is typical for white sharks at this time of year — they’re on their northern migration to their summer-fall foraging areas.”

Western North Atlantic white sharks predominantly make the most of two comparatively broad areas throughout summer time and fall months, Cape Cod and Atlantic Canada, he mentioned.

“Both of these areas have healthy populations of seals which can be a rich food source especially for larger white sharks like Contender,” Tyminski defined, though white sharks may even opportunistically feed on numerous forms of fish, squid and different marine mammals.

The shark, named in honor of longtime OCEARCH companion Contender Boats, had beforehand pinged simply 22 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, researchers mentioned in early June.

“The Outer Banks is a common rest stop for these white sharks,” an OCEARCH staffer wrote on Instagram. “And Contender appears to be doing just that — taking a rest. This may be due to rich food resources in this region, and it would serve as a time to feed and prepare before what may be a long journey of 1,000 miles or more up to Canada.”

A ping is emitted when tags hooked up to dorsal fins rise above the floor, transmitting real-time location knowledge to researchers. OCEARCH has tagged 446 animals to this point, according to the group’s website.

Visitors can observe Contender and different ocean predators on OCEARCH’s global shark tracker.

“The SPOT tag deployed on Contender will provide valuable real-time data for approximately five years, helping us track his movements and understand his migration patterns,” in response to OCEARCH’s page that monitors the shark. “Additionally, we’ve collected important biological samples, including urogenital material, which are currently being analyzed.”

While Contender represents the biggest Atlantic male white shark ever to be tagged by OCEARCH, a 17-foot-2-inch feminine white shark named Nukumi retains the title as the biggest specimen OCEARCH has ever tagged and launched, Tyminski instructed Newsweek.

Nukumi, named after a Native American mythological determine, was first tagged off Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, in October 2020 and weighed 3,541 kilos. Her final ping was transmitted in 2021, data shows.

White sharks have an estimated most measurement of about 20 ft, with unconfirmed stories of some reaching as much as 23 ft in size, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“The white shark has been credited with more fatal attacks on humans than any other species of shark,” the museum’s web site reads. “This is due primarily to its size, power and feeding behavior.”