Record-Breaking Great White Shark Spent the Summer Near Popular Beaches

We covered a study last week in which researchers tested bite-resistant wetsuit material with real sharks. Their testing revealed that wetsuits made with these special materials can mitigate damage from large white and tiger shark bites—“large” meaning up to 3 meters, or around 9 feet. But those results are suddenly much less reassuring in light of today’s story.

Back in January, the non-profit organization OCEARCH caught and tagged Contender—a 13.8-foot-long (4.6 meters) adult great white shark weighing an estimated 1,653 pounds (750 kilograms)—45 miles (around 73 kilometers) off the coast of Florida and Georgia. The tag is now allowing scientists and the public to monitor Contender’s whereabouts. Disturbingly, however, it revealed that the beast spent time near popular beach destinations along the United States’ East Coast this summer.

(If 9-foot-long great whites are “large,” does that make Contender extra large?)

Record-breaking shark

“Contender is the largest male white shark ever caught, SPOT tagged, released and now studied in the NW Atlantic white shark population!” OCEARCH wrote in a social media post earlier this year. The video shows researchers leaning over the side of the boat, precariously close to the massive great white they had pulled up against the side of the boat with ropes.

Once the shark is caught with a drumline (a shark trap with a baited hook) and reeled in to the side of the boat, “we measure it, collect samples for health, reproduction, diet, nutrition, toxicology and genetic studies, perform an ultrasound, and then attach two types of satellite tags to track their movements,” Harley Newton, OCEARCH’s chief veterinarian and senior veterinary scientist, told Oceanographic Magazine. One reveals the shark’s GPS location only when the animal is at the surface, meaning sometimes it disappears for periods of time.

After hanging out along Florida’s east coast until mid-March, Contender bobbed around North Carolina from early April to early June, including the popular area of Pamlico Sound. It then disappeared again until July 17, when it (very appropriately) stopped by in the area of Cape Cod. On July 18, it was around 100 miles (160 km) from Nantucket. Maybe it was seeking to inspire a fifth Jaws movie.

Still not as big as the ladies

While Contender is certainly a big boy, “male white sharks don’t get anywhere near as big as the females,” John Chisholm, an adjunct scientist at the New England Aquarium, told the Cape Cod Times. Adult females are an average of 15 to 16 feet long (4.6 to 4.9 meters), while adult males reach an average of 11 to 13 feet (3.4 to 4 meters). Deep Blue—a famous great white so large we’ve previously compared her to a blimp—was 20 feet (6 meters) long back in 2015 and one of the largest sharks ever filmed. (If Contender is an extra-large shark, does that make Deep Blue an extra extra large shark?).

Contender last popped up today in Canada’s Jacques Cartier Passage, north of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Needless to say, I won’t be trusting any material marketed as bite-resistant any time soon.