OCEARCH tags Nukumi, a 17 foot great white shark on Oct. 2, when she was off Nova Scotia.
* A nor'easter appears to have spurred the movement of several great white sharks along the East Coast.
* Five sharks, including four great whites, were detected off the New Jersey coast during the storm.
The ocean may be a mess on Monday - the result of a nor'easter that began to whip the coast Saturday, Oct. 11 - but apparently that is just the way great white sharks like it.
Several of the ocean's biggest fish are on the move in the nor'easter, judging by OCEARCH's global shark tracker app. If you don't follow OCEARCH, that is the non-profit research vessel tagging great white sharks in the Western Atlantic Ocean since 2007.
Last week the Asbury Park Press reported on Ripple, a nearly 12-foot long, 800-pound sub-adult male great white shark that "pinged" while it was just southeast of the Cape May coast. A ping occurs when the dorsal fin carrying the tracking tag is above water long enough for a satellite to pick up its location.
By Monday morning, however Ripple was offshore of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In his wake, four more great white sharks - Brass Bed, Crass, Nori and Webster plus one dusky shark, Mira - were offshore of the New Jersey coast. All five sharks registered a "ping," between midnight and the early morning hours. All four on the edge of the continental shelf where wave heights were reaching 17 feet, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's offshore forecast.
The great white sharks are most likely on a migration route to the southeastern coast of the United States, a route taken by many of the great white sharks tagged by OCEARCH over its nearly two decades of research in the Western Atlantic Ocean waters off the east coast of the U.S. and Canada.
The four great white sharks were recently tagged during OCEARCH's expedition to Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia where it is collaborating with the Tancook Islands Marine Field Station. This particular expedition began Sept. 23 and coincidentally concluded on Monday, Oct. 13. The biggest of the four to "ping" off New Jersey on Monday, was Webster, an adult male that measured over 12 feet and weighed 1,008 pounds at the time of its capture and tagging.
Mira the dusky shark was tagged in May during an expedition off the northern Florida coast.
OCEARCH is gathering migration routes and biological data from the sharks to better understand the life cycle of one of the ocean's apex predators. With the data, OCEARCH can map essential shark habitats and inform future conservation efforts.
Tied to the dock
Meanwhile the Shore's recreational fishing fleet has been sitting out the storm. The boats were last out on Saturday and at least a few of the captains were optimistic then that the ocean would settle by Tuesday to resume fishing. Capt. Rich Falcone on the Golden Eagle party boat was out Saturday and said they caught bluefish on their morning drifts but by midday the blues shut off. He said the fish were 3 to 5 pounders with a few bigger 8 pounders pulling a bit harder on the lines. He had some fares catch their limits of five bluefish.
Afterwords they planned to lock the boat up until Tuesday but whether or not the ocean is going to let people out of the inlets by then looks less likely. According to NOAA's coastal marine forecast the high wind gusts and waves will persist longer than many captains had hoped for. By Thursday, the winds should have tapered to 15 to 20 knots and seas settled down to 4 to 6 feet, which still may be enough to keep the fleet home.
When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him at [email protected].