Contender, a large male great white shark tagged by the marine research group OCEARCH has been spotted in waters off the coast of North Carolina after months of cruising around Florida.
Contender was tagged by the research group in January 2025. He weighs nearly 1,700 pounds and measures over 13 feet long. The tag provides real-time data about his location, allowing researchers to learn more about migration patterns and other habits.
Contender was most recently spotted about 45 miles southeast of Cape Fear, near Wilmington, North Carolina, on Sunday night, OCEARCH said on Instagram.
Great whites like Contender tend to spend the summer in cooler, prey-dense northern waters near Maine and Canada before migrating south for the winter, OCEARCH said on Instagram.
He isn’t the only shark in the area. Nori, a juvenile female white shark, was about 36 miles east of Cape Fear as of Saturday, while another female juvenile named Cayo was about 67 miles to the southeast, OCEARCH said on social media. A subadult male white shark named Jason was about 32 miles south of Cape Fear earlier in February. Three other sharks pinged in the waters near Charleston.
Sharks don’t ping every day. Their movements are tracked by devices attached to their dorsal fins. The trackers can’t transmit through water, OCEARCH senior data scientist John Tyminski said in a video published by the organization. To accurately confirm a shark’s location, the tracker must break the surface while an Argos satellite is above. The satellites are only in a given spot for about 13 minutes. During that time, the tracker must send multiple messages for a location to be confirmed.
If a shark’s tracker only sends one message to the satellite, it is considered a “Z-ping.” Those are less specific and only give scientists a general sense of where the shark may be, Tyminski said.
Each shark’s tag can provide real-time data for several years, according to OCEARCH. That information is available online.
