Great white shark trackers: OCEARCH expedition to follow sharks' transition north from Florida (2024)

FAQs

Great white shark trackers: OCEARCH expedition to follow sharks' transition north from Florida? ›

Great white shark trackers: OCEARCH expedition to follow sharks' transition north from Florida. Great white sharks spend winters down south, including the warm waters around Florida, and as they head back north this spring scientists will be there to study them.

In North American waters, white sharks have been reported from Newfoundland to Florida, and from the Aleutian Islands, Alaska to southern Mexico. Nowhere in its range is the white shark very common, and in fact, they are becoming increasingly rare.

Data from the OCEARCH Tracker provides strong evidence that the animals tagged using this method show long-term survival and long-distance migrations indicative of normal function and reproductive cycles.

OCEARCH operates in the “Now”, with our team of multimedia storytellers, we are bringing the world along in real time as we chase scientific data. With the help of the OCEARCH Tracker and social media platforms, we are leading the conversation on shark science in the digital space.

There never used to be young great white sharks basking off the busy beaches of central California, but as climate change starts to bite, warmer waters are enticing them north — with possibly catastrophic consequences for a whole ecosystem.

White sharks live worldwide in cool, coastal waters. In the eastern Pacific, they live from Baja California, Mexico, to the Gulf of Alaska, and appear to be most abundant in California at the Channel Islands off southern California and locations north of Point Conception, California.

Guinness Book of World Records largest Great White Shark

One, a 10.9-meter (36-foot) shark, was captured in Australian waters near Port Fairy during the 1870s. The second was discovered ensnared in a Herring weir in New Brunswick, Canada, during the 1930s, measuring an impressive 11.3 meters (37 feet) in length.

Nukumi, who has been coined “Queen of the Ocean” is the largest white shark tagged by OCEARCH to date in the Northwest Atlantic. Researchers believe she is over 50 years old and her immense scars mark her decades in the ocean.

1: Great White. You don't become the subject of a movie like "Jaws" without being dangerous in real life as well. Indeed, the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) leads all other sharks in attacks on people and boats, as well as fatalities.

Whale shark: The biggest specimen ever reliably measured was 18.8 metres or nearly 62 feet long – that's bigger than a school bus! Basking shark: While they don't get quite as large as whale sharks, the largest basking shark ever reliably measured was 12.27 metres long, or just over 40 feet.

Is there a Megalodon now? ›

There is simply no room, ecologically speaking, for a megalodon to exist. So, to sum everything up... Megalodon is NOT alive today, it went extinct around 3.5 million years ago.

Tiger sharks can blend in only so much, though—their average length is around 14 feet, but they can be longer than 20 feet. Tiger sharks are known for being aggressive, and it's true that they are second only to great whites in numbers of shark attacks on humans.

Transported to the park in a refrigerated truck, Rosie the shark spent more than a decade in a custom tank flooded with formaldehyde. When the park shuttered, however, Rosie was left behind — until one urban explorer chronicled the well-preserved creature for the whole world to see online.

Great white sharks in Florida? Yes. Great white sharks migrate south when the water gets cold and food sources become scarce up north, according to OCEARCH chief scientist Dr.

Instead, these sharks rely on obligate ram ventilation, a way of breathing that requires sharks to swim with their mouths open. The faster they swim, the more water is pushed through their gills. If they stop swimming, they stop receiving oxygen. They move or die.

Are great white sharks endangered? The IUCN lists the great white shark as vulnerable and its population trend as decreasing.

In the U.S. Atlantic, they range from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Caribbean. In the U.S. Pacific, they range from Alaska to California and Hawaii. The white shark also lives in waters off the Pacific coast of Mexico.

The white sharks that visit our East Coast are members of a population that live in the waters that stretch from the Gulf of Mexico all the way up to Newfoundland. They visit Canadian waters during the summer and early fall. And there's a good reason why they're making the seasonal trip north — food, and lots of it.

Being among the only warm-blooded fish, great whites get most of their energy from their food and one of the best sources of energy comes from fat – and seals have a lot of that – which makes the UK a tempting hunting ground. Great white sharks have been reported in the UK since 1965.

These areas include coastal regions in Australia, California, New Zealand, and Africa. While great white sharks are reportedly involved in more attacks on humans than any other kind of shark, the chances of getting bitten by one are only one in 3.75 million, according to the International Wildlife Museum.