Massive great white shark named Contender pings off Carolinas as 700-pound Bella spotted off Virginia
(CBS NEWS) – Sources from CBS say Contender, the largest white male shark tagged by the ocean research group OCEARCH, is on the move in the Atlantic Ocean, recently appearing near South Carolina.
The shark, who weighs over 1,650 pounds and is nearly 14 feet long, was spotted just 105 miles off the coast of Charleston on Monday, OCEARCH said on social media. On Wednesday, he looked to be even closer to shore, according to tracking data shared by OCEARCH.
Contender was tagged by OCEARCH nearly a year ago in waters near where he’s currently swimming. Since then, he has followed typical white shark migration patterns to spend the winter in warmer southern waters before migrating north for the summer. In late October, Contender began moving south again to spend another winter near Florida. He has traveled nearly 5,000 miles since he was first tagged.
Other white sharks are following the same pattern, said OCEARCH data scientist John Tyminski in a video shared on social media. Among them are Bella, a 700-pound white shark spotted near Virginia, and Penny, a 10-foot white shark that was still near southern New Jersey. Other sharks have already reached Florida’s coast.
While the sharks migrate over a wide area, they can often end up clustered in groups, Tyminski said. Contender and other sharks were likely drawn into “a kind of white shark traffic jam” by suitable environmental conditions and a bountiful food supply. During his last migration, Contender and other sharks lingered near the Outer Banks before moving up the coast.
OCEARCH said at the time that the region is a “common rest stop” for the species, likely because of its food resources.
Tracking the movements of Contender, Bella and other sharks and sea creatures gives OCEARCH “valuable data on the lives of white sharks in the Northwest Atlantic,” according to the organization. Each tag provides data for several years. The tag pings are publicly available on OCEARCH’s site.
