OCEARCH is watching closely as a large female white shark named Miss Costa cruises off the coast of the Florida Panhandle south of Panama City. She first pinged this year in the Gulf of Mexico in mid March and has been working her way steadily north ever since. Miss Costa was 12 feet 5 inches long when she was tagged in 2016 off the coast of Nantucket, MA and could be between 14 and 15 feet long today.
Her trip to the Florida Panhandle is significant because OCEARCH doesn’t often track large white sharks that far north into the Gulf, especially big females. It’s been known for a long time that white sharks visit the Gulf of Mexico, but the majority of their activity there remains a mystery since data sets on their movements in the region are lacking compared to other areas in the Northwest Atlantic.
