Katharine the great white shark is making her way back down Florida’s east coast.
The shark’s satellite transmitter pinged near the Florida-Georgia border last weekend and then near Daytona Beach on Wednesday.
Chris Fischer, founder of the shark-tracking group OCEARCH, says Katharine’s movements over the past two years demonstrate a transition from an immature shark to a mature shark. Scientists believe she might be pregnant, WESH reported.
OCEARCH researchers captured Katharine off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in August 2013 and attached a transmitter to her dorsal fin. Katharine is 14 feet, 2 inches in length and weighs 2,300 pounds.
In 2014, Katharine became OCEARCH’s first Atlantic great white shark to migrate past the Florida Keys into the Gulf of Mexico.
She spent much of June and the early part of July 2014 in the Gulf near Sarasota, close to Tampa and below Panama City. She then made her way to cooler waters.
Katharine made her way to Florida waters in January 2015, pinging off the coast of St. Augustine. After hanging around Florida, she traveled north. In April 2015, she pinged in waters near North Carolina. She spent most of the winter months off the coast of Nova Scotia.
Over the past few months, Katharine has made her way from the open ocean off the coast of Virginia Beach, in March 2016, to the waters well off the east coast of Savannah, in April 2016, before continuing to head south towards our state.
Satellite data shows Katharine has traveled nearly 29,000 miles since being tagged.
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