BEACHGOERS can check out a shark tracker app this summer that reveals whether a large shark has been near popular vacation spots.
A great white weighing nearly 1,500 pounds was recently spotted off the coast of North Carolina after spring breakers swarmed the area’s beaches.
2
2
The popular OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker is free to use and points out large sharks and other sea creatures all over the world.
The sharks are tagged and tracked as part of a scientific research project.
The site explains: “OCEARCH is a global non-profit organization conducting unprecedented research on our ocean’s giants in order to help scientists collect previously unattainable data in the ocean.”
The tracker lets you zoom in on locations and click on dots that relate to certain animals.
This includes information about the shark named Breton that was near North Carolina beaches recently.
It weighs about 1,437 pounds and measures over 13 feet.
The shark was first pinged in Nova Scotia, inspiring OCEARCH to give a nickname after Cape Breton.
The adult shark was first pinged by OCEARCH in September 2020.
Most read in News Tech
Since then, it has been tracked along the east coast from as far north as Canada to as far south as the islands off of Florida.
Another OCEARCH-tracked shark, Maple, was spotted southeast of St George Island, Florida, earlier in March.
Sharks are pinged when they break above the surface of the water.
The app also highlights tagged turtles and alligators.
