Cape Cod sharks: At least 1 great white has already made it to the Massachusetts coast

If nice white sharks manage a race to the Cape forward of summer time, an almost 11-foot sub-adult feminine is approach forward of the pack.

The greater than 600-pound nice white named Andromache has rapidly migrated north to her summer time dwelling. She was lately detected off of Martha’s Winery, based on the OCEARCH tracker — which exhibits her as the one OCEARCH tagged shark alongside the Massachusetts coast.

Final week, it appeared that the monstrous 1,000-pound, 12-footer grownup male named Ironbound could be the primary OCEARCH shark to achieve the Cape, however then Andromache popped up on the western fringe of the Winery.

“She’s up there fairly early,” OCEARCH Chief Scientist Bob Hueter informed the Herald this week. “She’s positively a Cape Cod-oriented white shark, and needs to be there from now by means of the summer time.

“She’s a reasonably good pinger, and has given us quite a lot of places throughout Nantucket in previous years,” Hueter added.

All through final Might, there have been 520 detections of tagged Atlantic White Shark Conservancy white sharks that swam by AWSC receivers, based on AWSC’s White Shark Logbook. The 520 Might detections compares to final yr’s peak month of 57,458 detections in August.

Andromache was tagged off Nantucket throughout OCEARCH’s Expedition Massachusetts 2020. She has since traveled practically 10,000 miles alongside the japanese seaboard. She spends a lot of the summer time round Nantucket and Chatham’s Monomoy Nationwide Wildlife Refuge — the place nice white sharks seek for seals.

Andromache is between 18 and 20 years outdated, which is the cusp of changing into a sexually mature shark within the Atlantic Ocean.

“This can be thrilling to observe her transition to sexual maturity within the subsequent yr or two,” Hueter mentioned. “Hopefully we’ll be capable to decide up the offshore actions that pregnant females often do.”

Andromache had been off of the Carolinas earlier than rapidly taking pictures up the coast.

The OCEARCH shark tracker exhibits nice whites all alongside the japanese seaboard, together with a “straggler” nonetheless within the Gulf of Mexico, Hueter mentioned. Maple — an almost 12-foot, greater than 1,200-pound sub-adult feminine — was lately detected off of Tampa Bay. She was tagged off of Nova Scotia final September.

“She’s type of straggling in comparison with the remaining,” Hueter mentioned. “It simply exhibits you the animals don’t huddle up in an space and transfer collectively in massive teams.

“White sharks get fairly unfold out,” he added. “It’s fascinating to see how these people range. They preserve us on our toes.”

To see the place some tagged sharks are within the ocean, go to the OCEARCH International Shark Tracker at ocearch.org/tracker, or obtain the OCEARCH Shark Tracker app.