Watch: A sharks-eye view of a great white’s day cruising Hilton Head Island waters
For one day, a great white shark off South Carolina’s coast cruised through cloudy waters carrying on its dorsal fin a piece of equipment worth thousands of dollars.
It’s called a camera tag. The gadget provides researchers a “sharks-eye” view of the apex predator’s every move. And for this particular white shark — tagged near Hilton Head Island on April 10 — its day to day is rather hum drum.
Caught, tagged and released by local charter captain Chip Michalove, the shark is the second swimming Southeast waters to get a camera tag. Michalove named the shark “Jason” after Jason Flack who was killed in February in a hit-and-run collision.
In the seconds of video uploaded by the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, Jason is, well, swimming like any other fish.
There are some “cool shots of stingrays and fish running for their lives,” said Megan Winton, a scientist with the Conservancy.
The $9,000 tag visually recorded Jason’s movement for a day. About 20 of the tags have been deployed by the Conservancy on white sharks swimming in the Cape Cod area and two in the Southeast. The camera tag allows about 10 hours of footage and records data 10 times a second. It also contains a three-dimensional sensor that allows scientists to look at the shark’s movement and behavior.
Winton said they’ve witnessed a white shark get zapped by a torpedo. Others have been stunned by seals and diving birds. One stared at rocks and buoys. And another relied on the current after eating to push water through its gills instead of constant swimming.
Michalove said more than two weeks have passed since he tagged and released the 9-footer, and she’s rather fond of South Carolina’s coast.
“The shark hasn’t left the area,” Michalove said. “There’s been a lot of life out there lately, a lot of life migrating in from the South.”
Michalove’s guess is that Jason is taking advantage of the good eats. Most people assume white sharks only feed on seals or marine mammals, but Winton said they have a diverse diet and are opportunistic predators.
It “allows them to thrive in a variety of habitats” throughout their course of migration, the scientist explained. Winton said she can already tell white sharks operate differently than they do off Cape Cod.
And their just getting started in the Southeast.
Want to track Jason’s path?
The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries’ “White Shark Logbook” is an online catalog of over 600 tagged and untagged Northwest Atlantic white sharks. The catalog has historic acoustic detection data from 2010 to 2022.
For real-time sighting and detection data, head to the free Sharktivity app.
