Great white shark tracked off Jersey Shore is among largest known males

A 1,653-pound great white shark was tracked off the Atlantic City coast Tuesday by a research organization that says the sighting offers "another clue" into the species' migration habits.

Contender, the name given to the 13.8-foot-long shark, has been studied by the Florida-based nonprofit Ocearch since it was tagged off the coast of Florida and Georgia in January. The male shark previously was spotted near the Outer Banks in North Carolina in June, off the coast of Massachusetts in July and near Point-Parent in Quebec, Canada, in September. Before Tuesday, he had last been tracked in late October traveling south off the coast of Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island.

MORE: North Wildwood sues N.J. over scrapped $54 million beach replenishment project

Estimated to be about 32 years old, Contender is considered the largest male great white shark in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean. Males generally live longer than females — sometimes surpassing 70 years old — but the females tend to grow bigger.

He's among more than 400 sharks worldwide that Ocearch has outfitted with transmitter tags. Those tags log the sharks' geographic coordinates by sending signals when the sharks' dorsal fins break that surface of the water within range of satellites.

"Every ping from Contender gives us a window into the life of a mature male white shark — how he moves, feeds, and contributes to the population’s recovery," Ocearch founder and expedition leader Chris Fischer said after the shark was spotted in Canada last month.

In a Facebook post Wednesday, Ocearch said it also got a ping from Earnst, a female great white measuring about 12 feet long and 1,000 pounds, in the vicinity of the Florida Keys. She was tagged more than 2,000 miles north on Oct. 4 near Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia.

Great white sharks are not considered endangered in the Atlantic Ocean, but their distribution varies by region and season. Ocearch's data shows their numbers have been rising in the Northwest Atlantic since the 1990s, and Canadian waters are a vital summer feeding area for the species. About 88% of the great whites the nonprofit has tagged in the waters off the Southeast U.S. — including Contender — migrate to Canadian waters in the summer and fall before swimming south during the winter months in search of warmer waters and more plentiful food. They typically breed off the coast of the Carolinas in late winter and early spring.

Ocearch started tagging great whites in the North Atlantic in 2012, leading annual expeditions to find live sharks and hoist them from the water using a hydraulic platform.

"Our team goes to work like a NASCAR pit crew, gathering as many samples as possible and attaching the tag," John Tyminski, Ocearch's senior data scientist, told National Fisherman last year. "In 15 minutes, the shark is back in the water."

Ocearch describes great whites as the ocean's "balance keepers" and says the data it collects is used to make recommendations for their protection. Some of the group's unexpected findings, including the discovery of a juvenile shark nursery off the coast of Long Island, have helped wildlife officials prioritize managing the species in areas where they are most vulnerable.

Contender is among a growing list of great white sharks that have made appearances off the New Jersey coast over the last decade.

The most famous, Mary Lee, was a mature female who measured 16 feet long and a whopping 3,456 pounds when she was tagged off Cape Cod in 2012. Mary Lee first showed up near New Jersey in 2015 when she was pinged about 10 miles off the coast of Wildwood. Her size earned her the title "Matriarch of the Sea," but Ocearch lost track of her around 2018, likely because the battery on her tracker died. She was estimated to be about 50 years old.

Ironbound, a mature male measuring more than 12 feet and about 1,000 pounds, pinged near Hudson Canyon off the coast of New Jersey in 2022. At the time, Ocearch researchers said he had traveled more than 13,000 miles up and down the Atlantic coast since he was tagged in 2019. Others pinged near New Jersey in recent years include 13-foot-long Breton, 7-foot-long Martha and nearly 11-foot-long Andromache.

Fischer said Contender's journey "represents the power of collaboration between science, innovation, and the public" as Ocearch works to fill in gaps in knowledge about the habits of great whites.

Ocearch expects the tag on Contender to provide data on his movements for about five years. The nonprofit maintains a website where the public can follow his whereabouts and learn about dozens of other animals the organization studies.