At nearly 14 feet, great white shark is swimming off Hilton Head coast. Where has he been?
Described as “the ultimate ocean warrior” and named after a boating company, Contender, a 13.8-foot-long, 1,653-pound great white shark swam off Hilton Head Island’s coastline Tuesday, just hours before snow fell on the island’s beaches.
The mature male shark is estimated to be in his early thirties.
The shark was first tagged on Jan. 17 by OCEARCH, a nonprofit agency that tags and tracks ocean animals. Contender was swimming about 45 miles off the Florida/ Georgia coastline, just north of Jacksonville, when he was tagged. Forty-five miles is about the driving distance from Hilton Head to Yemassee.
The adult male was traveling north, and just days later on Jan. 21, Contender’s tag pinged off the Hilton Head shoreline. He traveled about 80 miles in those four days, according to OCEARCH. A interesting food source or a warm current could be the driving factor behind Contender’s northern travel, said Dr. Harley Newton, chief scientist and veterinarian for OCEARCH.
How does the tag work?
The tag, attached to the surface of the shark’s fin, “pings” when the shark’s dorsal fin breaks the water’s surface for a brief period of time, said Newton. A wet/ dry switch turns the batteries in the tag on when the shark’s fin is out of the water, and it transmits the animal’s location. Eventually the tag corrodes, Newton said.
Some tagged sharks spend more time at the surface, making them easier to track, Newton added. Other sharks’ tags will not ping for years, Newton said.
Contender’s tracking journey has just begun. The tags used by OCEARCH have a five-year lifespan, so the public can follow Contender’s journey for the next several years of his life.
Winters down south
Contender is a part of the white shark population (Northwest Atlantic) that extends all the way from the waters of Novia Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, over 2,000 miles. Nicole Ralston, chief marketing officer for the non-profit, said that OCEARCH is looking to complete the “white shark history puzzle” to fully understand the sharks.
Newton said that while much is known about the shark’s behavior when they swim in northern waters during the summer, there are some things still unknown about the sharks when they travel down south in the winter months. These sharks generally spend their winter residency period — Dec. 1 through May 15 — south of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Details about their diet, elevated health markers and even the timing of their reproductive cycle are still not entirely known. They plan on continuing to tag sharks until May to better understand these details.
Several great white sharks have made their way through South Carolina waters in recent memory, including Anne Bonny, a nine-foot, 425-pound juvenile who was first tagged by OCEARCH in April 2023 and traveled as far south as Beaufort. At 14 feet and nearly 3,000 pounds, LeeBeth was tagged and released on Dec. 8, 2023 by Hilton Head Charter Captain Chip Michalove off the Hilton Head coast.
This story was originally published January 24, 2025 at 6:00 AM.
