An eight-foot great white shark stuck her dorsal fin out just long enough to say hi to Maryland’s coast yesterday.
OCEARCH, a nonprofit that tracks and researches great white sharks and other marine species around the world, says a 460-pounder that it’s nicknamed “Savannah” appeared off the Ocean City coast on Thursday. The organization even made a Twitter account for the beast to announce her presence.
Hey Mid Atlantic Friends! I’m just passin through…Have any of you seen my #FinFam around here? I hear this area is a great place to ping in! pic.twitter.com/yLa5yWGu6B
— Shark Savannah (@SharkSavannah) November 16, 2017
Every time Savannah or any of her fellow great whites surface, they “ping” OCEARCH staff to let them know their location. The point is to help researchers and conservators keep better track of marine species like sharks and turtles.
All of the data is open-sourced. The points for charted for Savannah’s path indicate she swam up from South Carolina’s Lowcountry starting in April, heading northeast to Nova Scotia before coming back down to the Mid-Atlantic in November.
Outlets are reporting that OCEARCH staff also captured and released Savannah. Pictures posted by the organization show her on the deck of a ship for a check-in of sorts before being thrown back into open water.
