RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – Great white sharks are known to migrate up and down the East Coast but North Carolina appears to be a favorite stop for the apex predator.
Ocearch is a group of researchers who track hundreds of marine animals – including great white sharks.
Ocearch tags the sharks so they can track their movements. When a shark nears the surface, its tracker pings its location.
Those pings have shown great whites migrate up and down the East Coast throughout the year.
Ocearch numbers show the Cape Cod area has the most great white pings since 2012 with 1,641.
But in a close second is the waters off North Carolina’s coast. There have been 1,148 pings from great whites off the Outer Banks and southeast beaches.
Ocearch’s data was analyzed by a team of data storytellers at Zencos, who used visual analytics tools from SAS to highlight the areas in the Northwest Atlantic where the most pings were detected starting in 2012.
Great whites “Katherine,” “Bruin,” “Mary Lee” and “Yeti” have all been tracked off the North Carolina coast.
Along with great whites, Ocearch tracks Tiger, Bull, Mako and Blue sharks along with pilot whales, sea turtles and more.