Do you remember the movie Jaws? They used three mechanical models of the shark, known as Bruce, in order to recreate the shark from the story. Now let us tell you the story of another great white named Katharine.
Katherine has 2,300 pounds and 14 feet 2 inches, and it was tagged with a tracking device back in 2013. For years, Katharine was adored by people, especially when she came near the coastlines. She even had a Twitter account, with about 61,000 followers.
Chris Fischer stated that people from Florida were simply in love with her and that she became the ambassador, the diplomat for the ocean. And then, May 12, 2019, happened. She was found 150 miles off the coast of Charleston, S.C. And then, we knew nothing about her. No one knew if she died or if she was looking for other friends. But at the end of March, there was a single, faint ping, thought to be a “ghost transmission.” On April 4, there were three more pings in less than 24 hours. These many signals, in such a short time, suggested to the researchers that this was indeed Katharine. Based on those signals, she was about 200 miles off the coast of Virginia. Back in 2013, when she was tagged, she was not considered to be an adult, yet, but she has 1,000 pounds more now, probably.
Scientists think that it was not really crazy surprising that a signal was picked up. The tracker is half as wide as iPhone X, and it was placed to the dorsal fin, and it transmits a ping when the shark breaks through the surface. They might even have an explanation for the silence: Great white sharks can stay below the surface for months.