A MONSTER 11-foot-long great white shark has been spotted circling off popular New York beaches. The shark called Andromache, who weighs 659 pounds and has been electronically tagged, was last “pinged” on May 11 off Montauk, New York. She was previously tracked off Long Beach Island, New Jersey, just the day before, according to the […]
A MONSTER 11-foot-long great white shark has been spotted circling off popular New York beaches.
The shark called Andromache, who weighs 659 pounds and has been electronically tagged, was last “pinged” on May 11 off Montauk, New York.
She was previously tracked off Long Beach Island, New Jersey, just the day before, according to the non-profit organization Ocearch, which tracks white sharks to help increase their population.
Ocearch founder Chris Fischer says Andromache is between 15 and 18 years old and “just getting ready to come into sexual maturity.”
“She’s the early arriver. She’s the first of the year to make her way up there,” he said.
The great white had been spending winter in the warmer waters around Florida.
The shark got her name from the wife of the Trojan hero Hector, from Homer’s Iliad, to “symbolize the strength, the courage, the maternity of an animal that is fundamental to all of our futures,” Fischer said.
Andromache is expected to pick a mate in another year or two, once she is fully mature.
“We’ll know the first time she gets pregnant when she makes that big move offshore,” deep into the Atlantic, Fischer said.
Fischer thinks she will spend some time around Long Island and the Jersey shore before heading up to Cape Cod for the summer, which is where Ocearch first tagged her in August last year.
He said people shouldn’t worry about sharks as attacks on humans is low, but they should respect them and apply “personal accountability”.
“Go enjoy the ocean, but understand it a little bit,” he said. “The moment you step into the ocean, you’re in the wild.”
He advised: “Don’t swim out in the middle of the food chain,” if you see baitfish roiling the water but instead just move to a “quieter section of the beach.”
“My number one piece of advice is: Make sure you know what a riptide is, make sure you know how to swim,” Fischer said. “You have thousands of drownings a year – and an odd one or two shark incidents – [but] people are worried about sharks and not riptides.”
