This Great White Shark's Epic Yearlong Atlantic Journey Has Scientists Asking One Big Question
On January 17, 2025, off the waters near the Florida-Georgia border, scientists clasped satellite tags to a great white shark named Contender’s body and waved him goodbye as he drifted off towards the northern waters to spend summers feasting on seals. From time to time throughout the year, Contender would ping them pockets of data and information about his journey while scientists sitting in the laboratory eagerly awaited his return. A year later, after navigating a long, meandering, and probably lonesome journey through the Atlantic waters, Contender finally returned to the southern coast. Celebrations were hosted as he made his way back home.
Now, scientists are curious to understand the brain behind Contender’s migratory route and whether it is connected to its mating behavior, according to a report by the news agency SWNS. Was the male great white shark up to some romance? Only time will tell.
Named in honor of Contender Boats Company, Contender is a hulking 14-foot, 1,700-pound male that acts like a secret intelligence agent for the scientists of OCEARCH, a U.S.-based marine research group that monitors shark movements globally. As it steers and trudges through the Atlantic Ocean, it pings data to the scientists, revealing details about its movements, its behavioral patterns, and its migration routes. And just from their screens, scientists can track their movements across thousands of miles and through international waters.
This time, the journey took him as far north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. After vacationing in the Brunswick area, Contender made his journey back south, making one of the “longest recorded migrations by a great white in the Atlantic.” During the voyage, Contender also stopped by the coasts of New Jersey, Canada, Jacksonville, Nantucket, and Cape Hatteras off the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Now that he has returned to the south, scientists are closely monitoring the timing.
They suspect that the timing coincides with the shark’s mating activity. The mating activities and reproductive behaviors of these elusive sharks have always lurked in mystery, and these clues could provide fascinating clues into the “great white reproduction.” "Of the few clues we have, it seems like we need to be paying attention to the late winter and early spring area," Chris Fischer, founder of OCEARCH, told SWNS. The next two to three months, especially, are significant in terms of monitoring whether Contender’s movements are linked to his mating behavior. “It’ll be very interesting to watch this mature male white shark,” Fischer exclaimed.
Not just satellite tags, scientists are also using blood sampling and hormone analyses to understand the various behaviors and patterns of this shark. “When will he be looking to mate? And could that be in the late winter and early spring, and where will he be?” Questions like these are rumbling through their heads. Apart from continuously spying on the activities of the shark, the team is also monitoring whether his path is converging with other tagged white sharks like the mature male Bretton and the mature female Goodall. "We all have our eyes on him over the next 60 to 90 days," Fischer declared.
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