Record Male Great White Spotted off Florida

The largest great white male shark ever recorded, weighing 1,653 pounds and spanning almost 14 feet long, was captured and released off Florida's coast on January 17. Researchers have given the giant a fitting name for his terrifying physique: "Contender."

Contender was detected and tagged by Ocearch, a global non-profit organization that uses ping technology to track shark movements, resulting in unprecedented information about the ocean's top predators. When the shark breaks the surface of the water, the signal is sent to a satellite.

Contender traveled 168 miles over 20 days, at one point taking 72 hours to slowly cover just five miles, according to Ocearch's Shark Tracker. His latest 'ping' was located off Vero Beach, about a half-hour drive from Port Saint Lucie, when he briefly broke the surface on February 23.

In January 2019, recreational divers in Hawaii swam with another giant white shark named "Deep Blue," possibly bigger than Contender. It was first seen off the coast of Mexico in 2013. The 2019 sighting became quite controversial when Ocean Ramsey, a shark tour operator, was photographed swimming close to it. (https://bit.ly/4bygjxl)

Tiger sharks have long been believed to be mainly a coastal species. However, one tagged specimen has made more than 4,600-mile round-trip journeys every year between two vastly different ecosystems -- the Caribbean's coral reefs and the mid- North Atlantic's open waters. Caribbean reef sharks tend to have smaller ranges. (https://bit.ly/41Hbyy6)

Shark enthusiasts can monitor many sharks' migration paths on Ocearch's tracking system. www.ocearch.org/tracker