Massive predator is ‘largest male white shark’ ever tagged along East Coast, team says
A shark research expedition off North Florida reports it caught “the largest male white shark” ever tagged along the East Coast.
It measured the shark at 13.8 feet and 1,652.8 pounds, the nonprofit research agency OCEARCH says.
The shark, named Contender, was tagged 45 miles offshore, near the Florida-Georgia state line on Jan. 17.
“Contender is the largest male white shark ever caught, SPOT tagged, released and now studied in the NW Atlantic white shark population,” OCEARCH said in a Feb. 4 Facebook post. “The SPOT tag deployed on Contender will provide valuable real-time data for approximately five years, helping us track his movements and understand his migration patterns.”
The tag had tracked Contender more than 168 miles as of Feb. 6, and revealed his current feeding ground stretches from St. Augustine, Florida, north to St. Catherine’s Island off southern Georgia.
OCEARCH reports the expedition off Florida was part of a “multidisciplinary research effort” to understand the annual migration of white sharks up and down the East Coast.
“Our team of scientists is studying their movements during the winter months to understand where sharks of all age classes spend time in the southeast, while also collecting vital samples to explore their reproductive cycles and diet,” OCEARCH said in a Jan. 23 Facebook post. “This research may help us identify the timing of mating of adult animals, particularly white sharks, in the western North Atlantic.”
OCEARCH discovered white sharks spend winters along the southeastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico, then return to New England and Canada in summer months.
While Contender is the largest male caught and tagged along the East Coast by OCEARCH, it tagged a bigger female white shark in 2020, off Nova Scotia. That shark, named Nukumi, was 17 feet, 2 inches, and weighed 3,541 pounds, data shows.
Nukumi’s tracking tag went silent in April 2021.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 11:52 AM with the headline "Massive predator is ‘largest male white shark’ ever tagged along East Coast, team says."