8-foot great white shark tracked near Maine beach
Aug. 13—A young great white shark was tracked near a popular southern Maine beach early Friday morning.
The 8-foot shark named Tuck was swimming near Crescent Beach in Cape Elizabeth about 4:17 a.m., according to Ocearch, an organization that's tracking the movements of tagged sharks.
Tuck was first tracked on the backside of Cape Cod on Aug. 3 before he made his way to the waters off Maine.
He isn't the only great white to be tracked off the Maine coast in recent days. On Aug. 7, an 11-foot female great white shark named Freya was tracked in the waters off Cape Elizabeth. Her journey to Maine began on March 21, when she left Onslow Bay off North Carolina, according to Ocearch.
On Aug. 9, a great white named Gladee was tracked inside Passamaquoddy Bay. The nearly 9-foot female shark has traveled from the eastern side of Nova Scotia to the Florida panhandle before returning north to the waters off Maine since last September.
The Maine coast is at the northern edge of the great white shark's range, but the fish are not commonly spotted off Maine. There are two to three sightings of great white sharks off the Maine coast each summer, according to the National Oceanographic Data Center, with recent recorded sightings off Wells and Bailey Island in 2020, near a popular Kennebunkport beach in 2019, near Stratton Island off Old Orchard Beach in 2018 and near Wells in 2017.
As the Gulf of Maine continues to warm, some scientists have said such sightings could become more common in coming years, particularly as the sharks are attracted to the resurgent seal population off New England.
In July 2020, Maine recorded its first fatal shark attack when a great white shark bit Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, of New York City while she was swimming in Mackerel Cove off Bailey Island in Harpswell.
