A satellite tracking tag was recovered in Florida nearly 1,200 miles from where it was first placed on a a great white shark by the family of a shark researcher studying the shark it had once been attached to.
The serendipitous finding occurred after the tag, which had previously been attached to a 10-foot great white named Cousin Eddie, began transmitting its location from St. Augustine Beach. Megan Winton, a researcher at the White Shark Conservancy in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was alerted by her colleague, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries scientist Greg Skomal. Megan’s family just happened to be eating lunch at a beachside restaurant and were able to head to the coordinates using Google Maps.
When a satellite tag that’s been out on a white shark for a year washes ashore right next to where your parents are eating lunch, and your entire family heads to the beach and finds it, you might start to suspect you’re the luckiest person in the world 💜#Christmasmiracle pic.twitter.com/jgFEwYJQLD
— Megan Winton (@MegalodonWinton) December 17, 2019
Cousin Eddie was tagged in December 2018 in Hilton Head, South Carolina. The tags, which are designed to pop off after recording data for approximately a year, are usually lost at sea after the final data is uploaded and the batteries eventually die. To be able to recover one could provide valuable insights into the movements of great white sharks.
“Getting a tag back is the best thing, it’s a bonanza of data,” Megan told the Palm Beach Post. “But physically recovering the tag is an incredibly tough thing to do.”
