Sharks tagged off Georgia travel together to Florida — just in time for spring break
Two great white sharks tagged Jan. 17 off southern Georgia have resurfaced not far from each other off the Florida coast — just in time for spring break, tracking shows.
The duo were lounging about 20 miles apart, between Melbourne and Sebastian, on Wednesday, Feb. 26, according to trackers fitted on their fins by the nonprofit OCEARCH.
Both are males, and they range in size from big to really big.
Danny, the smaller of the two, is 9 feet, 6 inches and 462 pounds, and the behemoth named Contender is 13 feet, 9 inches and 1,653 pounds, OCEARCH says.
Trackers applied by OCEARCH have revealed white sharks use the east coast like a highway, traveling north to New England and Canada for the summer, and south to the Gulf of Mexico for the winter.
The seasonal migration is linked to the pursuit of prey, comfortable water temperatures and mating, experts say.
Danny has been the more adventurous of the two sharks, traveling as far south as Marathon in the Florida Keys and back north again, tracking shows.
Meanwhile, Contender has stayed north of Vero Beach along Florida’s Mid-Atlantic Treasure Coast. It’s not clear why he has traveled about 100 miles less than Danny during the past 40 days.
Contender is the “largest male white shark” ever caught, tagged and released for study in the northwest Atlantic, OCEARCH says.