Alarm as Atlantic's biggest great white heads for tourist hotspot
The biggest ever shark tagged in the Atlantic has been tracked swimming dangerously close to one of America's top summer vacation spots. The 14-foot, 1,653-pound apex predator - nicknamed 'Contender' after the research vessels used by the organization - was recently detected off the coast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, about 30 miles from Cape Cod and 100 miles south of Boston.
Marine researchers from nonprofit group OCEARCH, which monitors sharks around the globe, say the adult male is about 32 years old and still going strong, well within the typical great white lifespan of 30 to 40 years. The shark was first tagged in January near the Florida-Georgia border and has since made a 1,000-mile journey up the East Coast.
It has pinged more than 40 times along the way, including in February off Vero Beach, Florida , and in June near Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Contender's tracker pings whenever his dorsal fin breaks the surface while an Argos satellite is overhead and allows researchers a glimpse into the migration habits of these top-tier predators.
Experts say great whites often head north in spring and summer, following prey and cooler waters , making this latest sighting near Nantucket an unsettling but not unusual event. While large, Contender is still smaller than the blood-thirsty antagonist of the 1975 blockbuster hit Jaws.
'The largest white sharks that have been reliably measured are right around 20 feet, and any larger than this is likely impossible,' Nick Whitney, PhD, the senior scientist and chair of the Fisheries Science and Emerging Technologies department at the New England Aquarium told USA Today last year. 'We know this because scientists have been able to calculate the size of white sharks at different ages and show that their growth levels off when they hit around 40 years old.
Marine biologist Andriana Fragola, 31, issued advice to beachgoers to keep them safe from shark attacks. 'The best thing to do is just to remain calm,' she told Daily Mail. 'If you do want to get out of the water, just slowly kind of back out of it - that way you can keep an eye on the shark while getting out.'
'Any type of screaming and splashing, they can feel the vibrations of all of that, and it's definitely going to make them more interested in pursuing you or just checking you out.' 'Honestly, standing still is probably the best thing.' If you're in the water and a shark is curious, eye contact is key.
'You want to look like a predator,' she said. 'You're going to stand your ground and show the animal that you see it - show the shark that you see it - by making eye contact and continuing to look around, just in case there's any other sharks in the area.' 'And then if the shark ever continued to approach you... you could push down on the top of the head and push it away from you. That's like last-case scenario.'
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