1,200-pound great white shark is swimming off the coast of South Carolina
By Aya Elamroussi, CNN
(CNN) — A 12-foot great white shark was spotted off the coast of South Carolina this week, about a year after it was detected near the New Jersey shore.
Ironbound, an adult great white shark weighing about 1,189 pounds, was recorded twice near South Carolina Thursday morning, according to OCEARCH, a nonprofit marine research group that provides open-source data about shark migration.
He was first tagged on October 3, 2019, in the waters around Nova Scotia and named after Canada’s West Ironbound Island.
OCEARCH captures and fits sharks with a tracker that pings whenever they break the ocean surface – an effort aimed at enhancing data collection.
Last year in late April, Ironbound was detected off New Jersey’s coastline. At the time, the shark was about 20 years old, said Bob Hueter, chief scientist at OCEARCH.
Since he’s been tagged, Ironbound has swam about 15,186 miles, OCEARCH’s data shows.
Great white sharks in the Atlantic Ocean migrate each year, spending their summers in northern waters near Canada and their winters as far south as the eastern Gulf of Mexico, Hueter has said.
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CNN’s Zoe Sottile contributed to this report.
