Contender, a 14-foot, 1,600 pound adult male great white shark was tagged by OCEARCH in January near the Florida/Georgia line. The nonproft works to research ocean life by tracking their locations throughout their lives.
NORTH CAROLINA — Contender, the largest male great white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic, is on the move again following his latest location ping in the Outer Banks in April.
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Weighing in at almost 1,700 pounds and measuring nearly 14 feet, his latest Z-ping went off on Thursday, June 25, according to OCEARCH’s global shark tracker.
Contender, the 14-foot, 1600 pound great white shark on the day he was tagged by OCEARCH in January 2025.
(OCEARCH / FOX Weather)
First tagged in January 2025 off the Florida–Georgia coast, he has continued providing real-time data that supports migration research and helps advance future ocean conservation efforts.
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Latest ping, Z-ping, and tracking for Contender
(OCEARCH)
According to OCEARCH, when a shark is tagged, a SPOT satellite tag is attached to its dorsal fin.
The device utilizes two copper contacts that form a closed circuit underwater. When the shark breaks the surface, the circuit is broken, which “wakes up” the tag to transmit a location signal.
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“If the shark stays at the surface for 10, 20, 30 seconds, we’ll get a good fix on where the shark is,” OCEARCH Chief Scientist Dr. Robert Hueter said.
However, if it is only a quick, transient transmission, it is classified as a Z-ping. This tells researchers that the shark surfaced, but the signal was too brief to calculate its coordinates.
Contender the great white shark being tagged in the Atlantic Ocean.
(OCEARCH / FOX Weather)
“It’s really a miracle of science,” Hueter said.
Contender and other sharks and sea animals like him can be tracked in real-time using the free OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker app.
