Scientists say for the first time they've tracked a so-called "great white shark" in Long Island Sound. The shark, named Cabot, was tracked in three locations northeast of the New York-Connecticut border on Monday.
Cabot is technically a white shark – the term “great white” just came from Hollywood. But Chris Fischer says Cabot is still the first of his species to travel so close to the coast of Greenwich, Connecticut.
“It’s normal for sharks to be passing off Montauk, Block Island, and all that sort of thing when it comes to this species. We’ve just never found one deep into the Long Island Sound like this.”
Fischer is the founding chairman and expedition leader of OCEARCH, a company that tags species like white sharks and shares live tracking data to aid research.
He says Cabot likely came to feed and it’s a good sign he returned to this part of the Atlantic. Cabot weighs more than 500 pounds and measures over 9 feet long – so he’s close to mature. Fischer says it was rare to find sharks of his size until fisheries stopped using in-shore gill nets that had been killing baby white sharks.