The remarkable story of two great white sharks off the East Coast of the United States continues tonight with this:
You can read a whole lot more about this project and see where Mary Lee and Genie have pinged at OCEARCH Tracking Central. Genie is not far east of Mary Ann.
There are also two tagged sharks that have pinged off the coast of Africa — one off Mozambique and one off South Africa.
More about OCEARCH:
Shark populations worldwide are under threat with significant declines in shark populations documented in areas where they were once common. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has determined that of the shark and ray species assessed, 30 percent are threatened or near-threatened with extinction. Conserving sharks is thus currently a global conservation priority and devising successful conservation and management strategies is largely limited by our scientific knowledge on their biology.
Significant information is lacking with regard to the medium and long range movement patterns of white sharks. Traditional research has focused on fine small scale movements of white sharks within known aggregation sites. Gaining this previously unattainable information enables more effective shark and ocean conservation and – protection of human life.
Our collaborative work with leading researchers and their institutions generates data in a number of areas pertaining to shark ecology.
UPDATE, Jan. 8, 6:40 p.m.:
This post has gotten a lot of hits today, so I wanted to be sure and update it. As of about two hours ago, Mary Lee had worked her way well away from shore — but still not too far off the coast at Jacksonville.
Here’s a screen cap of the most recent image from OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker:
UPDATE, 1/9:
A great interview with OCEARCH founder Chris Fischer on CNN: