Watch: Cape Cod scientists share underwater video from perspective of great white shark

CHATHAM, Mass. — The Cape Cod-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy announced this week that researchers have successfully deployed the second-ever camera tag on a great white shark off the East Coast of the United States.

With the assistance of Chip Michalove, of Outcast Sportfishing, AWSC scientist Megan Winton was able to clamp the device to the dorsal fin of a 9-foot female white shark off the South Carolina coast, the Conservancy said. The team also deployed a fin-mounted satellite tag that will transmit the shark’s location to overhead satellites in real-time when its dorsal fin breaks the water’s surface for the next year.

The camera tag provides researchers with a “shark’s-eye”’ view and includes sensors that record data on the shark’s movements and environment 10 times a second, according to the AWSC, and the entire device detaches from the shark after a day and floats to the surface, where it transmits its location via a GPS beacon so researchers can retrieve it.

Watch: Cape Cod scientists share underwater video from perspective of great white shark Atlantic White Shark Conservancy

The AWSC says that collected data will be used to learn more about how white sharks use the waters off of the Carolinas and why they gravitate to the region in the winter and spring.

“We know from historical records and tagging data collected over the past 15 years that the southeast US is an important overwintering habitat for white sharks,” Winton said in a news release. “But we don’t know that much about how they use the area exactly, or what it is they’re doing when they’re there.”

The new shark will soon be available for tracking on AWSC’s Sharktivity app.

This achievement comes after the AWSC recently updated its white shark catalog to include 2023 data gathered from Nova Scotia to Florida, and including waters off Cape Cod. The organization has identified over 700 white sharks since it began monitoring the population in 2014.

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