The Great White Sharks love the Jersey Shore. This time, Hilton has been tracked off the shores of Atlantic City.
Hilton, a 12-foot, 1,326-pound male white shark pinged Friday afternoon off the coast of New Jersey.
Nonprofit shark-tracking group OCEARCH received the ping from Hilton at 4:24 p.m. The shark was tracked Thursday off the coast of the southern Delaware beaches before moving north.
Mary Lee is famous for surfacing in the waters off New Jersey. The 16-foot, 3,456-pound great white shark was last tracked in the area a month ago.
"A 'ping' is determined when the tagged shark's dorsal fin breaks the surface of the water and transmits a signal to a satellite overhead," OCEARCH said while noting the exact geo-location is an estimate.
This is Hilton's first appearance in local waters since OCEARCH began tracking him in March. Hilton was tagged after he was caught off Hilton Head, South Carolina.
His movement north began with pings off Nags Head, North Carolina on Monday, Virginia Tuesday, then Delaware on Thursday.
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OCEARCH expedition leader Chris Fischer says the group's mission is to gain data about the great white shark population in hopes of protecting fish in the ocean. He says people shouldn’t fear a shark being in local waters. Instead, they should celebrate it because of what a shark means to the ocean ecosystem.
"People should be terrified of an ocean that's not full of sharks. They keep everything in balance," Fischer said. "So, if we want to make sure that our great-grandchildren can eat fish sandwiches, we need lots of big sharks."
You can track the movements of Hilton, Mary Lee and and other sharks by clicking here or by downloading the Global Shark Tracker app for your iPhone or Android.
