The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Great whites spotted along Mid-Atlantic
One shark, Mary Lee, has 125,000 followers on Twitter.
Their names are Mary Lee,
Katharine and Hilton. During the summer months, they like to hang out relatively close to beaches along the Mid-At- lantic. They are great swim- mers. And they feast on the flesh of gray seals.
Also, they are great white sharks.
Just in time for the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” as many people are seeking relief from the heat at beaches in Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey, OCEARCH, a nonprofit that tracks the movements of sharks, has logged a number of “pings” from great whites tagged with receivers in their dorsal fins.
Les Kaufman, a Boston University biology professor and shark expert, said that while the number of sharks in the water is believed to be drop- ping, the kind of technology used by OCEARCH makes it easier for nonscientists to track them, including via an iPhone app.
“Scientists know that the sharks are out there,” Kaufman said. “It becomes news when nonscientists are encountering them . ... With advances in the technology there’s a greater awareness.”
In recent years, OCEARCH has tracked about 300 sharks, including mako and tiger sharks. They tend to swim north in the summer, as the hot weather warms the waters off the East Coast. But while they may sometimes venture near shore, sharks more typically swim miles away from the coastline.
Kaufman said a 13-foot-long shark generally would not swim in water less than 3 feet deep. In the entire world last year, he noted, only four people died from shark attacks. Many, many more people are killed from complications of insect bites.
“Mosquitoes, I mean my God!” Kaufman said. “Malaria takes a huge chunk of humanity every year, and sharks don’t.”
OCEARCH followed a 1,300- pound male named Hilton who measures about 12 feet from teeth to tail from the coast of Ocean City on Friday to the Jersey Shore by Sunday.
Other great whites spotted along the East Coast in the last 30 days include Miss Costa, a 1,600-pound, 12-foot female recorded near Nantucket, Massachusetts; Katharine, a 2,300-pound, 14-footer whose location was noted close to Virginia Beach; and Cisco, a young, 8-foot male who spent Memorial Day weekend in the waters between Lewes, Delaware, and Cape May, New Jersey, and just appeared in Nantucket.
Mary Lee, a 16-foot great white, who at 3,450 pounds weighs about the same amount as a Toyota Camry, has 125,000 followers on Twitter and was last “pinged” in mid-June near the Jersey Shore. She spent this past winter near Savannah, Georgia, and has traveled as far as Bermuda since she was tagged in September 2012 off Cape Cod.
While great whites in particular are known as fearsome predators, thanks to movies such as “Jaws,” Kaufman said
people should remember that humans have caused much more damage to sharks by overfishing.
“We have absolutely raped and devastated the global ocean,” Kaufman said.
Still, if you happen to be swimming in the middle of a gray seal colony, like those near Cape Cod, the balance of power could shift, Kaufman said.
“That’s a shark cafe,” Kaufman said. “A high-end shark restaurant.”