WATCH: Giant Great White Sharks Are Gathering off the Outer Banks
There’s a great white shark party happening off North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and researchers say there are still more toothy guests on the way.
Ocearch, which runs a popular Shark Tracker website, told The Charlotte Observer that four sharks with tracking devices on them have “pinged” in the area in recent days.
Before you freak out, it’s actually quite common for great white sharks to gather off the Southeast coast in the winter. The Outer Banks are on the sharks’ path between their fall aggregations sites up north and their winter foraging area off the Southeast Coast.
“The Atlantic continental shelf waters off North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida are a winter hot spot for large white sharks,” Ocearch explained.
As of Monday morning, great white shark Ironbound, a 12-foot-4-inch male that last weighed in at 998 pounds, had made it to Cape Hatteras. “Right now only white sharks Helena and Unama’ki have pings farther South than him, but others aren’t far behind,” the organization shared on Twitter Monday.
Ocearch is also tracking three other male great white sharks that pinged recently off the Outer Banks between Corolla and Rodanthe. They’ve also got their eyes on another half dozen great whites currently making their way South.
Unama’ki, who was last measured at 15 feet and 5 inches and weighed an astronomical 2,076 pounds, is by far the biggest great white of the bunch. She was reportedly pinged between Myrtle Beach and Charleston this week.
