The scientific team OCEARCH has tagged the largest male white Shark ever, and it is migrating north near the coast of North Carolina. OCEARCH initially tagged Contender, an adult male great white shark that was almost 14 feet long, in January 2025.
He spent some time close to Florida after being sighted off the coast of Georgia. His monitoring device has been pinging repeatedly off the coasts of North Carolina and South Carolina as he has been heading north for a few weeks. Only 22 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, his tracker made a ping on June 11.
According to an Instagram post by OCEARCH, Contender is “making moves along the Atlantic coast” and seems to be migrating north for the summer by typical great white migratory trends.
According to OCEARCH, the species spends the winter in warmer waters in the south. After that, the sharks spend the following few months in “cooler, more prey-dense waters” close to Canada.
As per OCEARCH, the species uses the Outer Banks as a “common rest stop” because of the abundance of food sources here.
Additionally, the location enables the sharks to get ready for the potentially 1000-mile northward trek.
Contender’s travels provide OCEARCH with “valuable data on the lives of white sharks in the Northwest Atlantic,” according to the group.
“Every ping helps us get one step closer to understanding and protecting these incredible animals,” the agency said.
On OCEARCH’s website, the tag pings of Contender and other tagged sharks are accessible to the general public.
North Carolina’s Outer Banks recently saw the pinging of the largest adult male great white Shark ever observed in the Atlantic Ocean. OCEARCH estimates that Contender weighs 1653 pounds and is almost 14 feet long.
In the Atlantic Ocean, he is now the largest great white male Shark ever observed by OCEARCH.
A worldwide NGO, OCEARCH studies sea turtles, sharks, whales, and other marine creatures to assist scientists in gathering data. OCEARCH tagged the enormous great white off the coast of Georgia and Florida in January.
Since then, OCEARCH has been tracking him, using pings to find his location. An Argos satellite must be in the vicinity to record the shark’s location, and Contender’s dorsal fin must break the water for a ping to occur.
Over the past six months, Contender has been swimming up and down the U.S. east coast according to his track record.
Contender was seen swimming northward from Florida’s eastern coast in March.
According to OCEARCH scientists, Contender is around thirty-two years old. The OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker app is free and allows real-time tracking of competitors and other sharks.