VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Two great white sharks appear to be spending their fall break off the Virginia coast.
According to The Virginian-Pilot and WAVY, nonprofit ocean research group OCEARCH said a tracking device for Bob, a 13.3-foot adult male shark weighing more than 1,300 pounds, pinged Sunday morning off Virginia Beach. That evening, Tancook, an almost 10-foot-long, 715-pound juvenile male, also pinged nearby.
A “ping” occurs when a tagged shark’s dorsal fin breaks the surface of the water, TCPalm.com previously reported.
Researchers first tagged Bob and Tancook in September 2021 near Nova Scotia, Canada, according to OCEARCH. Since then, Bob has traveled an estimated 2,725 miles, while Tancook has logged a whopping 6,949 miles, the organization reported.
OCEARCH wrote on its website that Bob was named for the group’s chief scientist, Dr. Robert “Bob” Hunter. Tancook’s name “means ‘facing the open sea’ to the local indigenous Mi’kmaq people of Nova Scotia,” the organization said.
©2022 Cox Media Group
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/EPITFP4YHRHSDBGVLWFOVKARXE.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/F7WRDPMPZFBNHEFQ5XTYN5E6DU.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/ZRBUBVWFNJFXJP6ZQG2ANEROVE.png)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/GUAD4ABRCRB4LJ6TP72IOU75WI.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/QWUTZPA7ABBMXDTHZKIAPGFRGM.jpg)