Shark nearly 12 feet long tagged near World War II shipwreck off North Carolina coast
A team of researchers working off North Carolina captured and tagged a shark weighing nearly 900 pounds near the site of an notorious World War II shipwreck.
OCEARCH posted the news Thursday on Facebook, noting the “sub-adult female” great white shark was 11 feet, 8 inches long and weighed 883 pounds.
The shark has been fitted with a satellite tracking tag as part of an expedition that hopes to confirm that white sharks mate off North Carolina’s Outer Banks. A team of scientists collected data for 22 research projects before the shark was released, about 10 miles off the coast in Onslow Bay.
Experts say the shark, who they named Freya, was not yet mature enough for mating.
“Freya is part of the critical size group of almost mature females whose survivorship is essential in rebuilding the white shark population in the Northwest Atlantic,” OCEARCH Chief Scientist Bob Hueter told McClatchy News. “Studying her health and watching her movements will help to guide policy on the recovery plan for the species.”
The shark was found near the wreck of the W.E. Hutton, a tanker torpedoed by the German submarine U-124 on March 19, 1942, according to Monitor National Marine Sanctuary. The sinking is notable because the U-boat waited and fired its final shot as the Hutton’s crew abandoned ship. Thirteen out of 36 crewmen died, the sanctuary reports.
Hundreds of shipwrecks have been documented off North Carolina — known as “the Graveyard of the Atlantic” — and research shows they attract large sharks. This is largely because the wrecks draw fish that sharks like to eat, experts say.
OCEARCH, a nonprofit dedicated to white shark research, launched a 21-day mission off the North Carolina coast on March 12, aiming to capture sexually mature white sharks and run tests for elevated hormone and sperm levels.
OCEARCH founder Chris Fischer told McClatchy News evidence points to the Outer Banks as a place where white sharks gather for a brutal form of mating that includes the males grabbing the females with their teeth.
The expedition runs through April 1 and includes scientists from 28 research institutions, OCEARCH says.
