Mote Marine Laboratory

Mote scientists aboard the M/V OCEARCH report that they’ve tagged and released the first two great whites of  “Expedition Cape Cod” as of Aug. 23.

The first was Nicknamed “Betsy.” She’s an immature female, 12.5 feet long and weighing in at 1,400 pounds — or in Mote scientist Dr. Nick Whitney’s tongue-in-cheek estimation via a short text: “She was big, but not that big. But definitely not small.” He can say this, of course, because the first white shark Whitney tagged weighed more than 3,500 pounds!

Whitney and Dr. Robert Hueter, director of Mote’s nationally designated Center for Shark Research, were invited to participate in the research trip led by the nonprofit organization OCEARCH.

Mike McCallister, of UNF; Brandon Erye, Expedition Leader; OCEARCH Founder Chris Fischer; Dr. Bob Hueter and Dr. Nick Whitney of Mote finish placing the SPOT and accelerometer tags on Betsy. Photo by OCEARCH.

OCEARCH helps leading scientists obtain groundbreaking data on the biology and health of sharks, supporting research on sharks’ life history and migration. Their research ship, the M/V OCEARCH, is a unique 126-foot vessel equipped with a custom 75,000-pound hydraulic lift and research platform. It serves as both mother ship and at-sea laboratory.

The expedition is advancing the research programs of Mote, as well as the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and many other researchers and institutions.

Whitney had the opportunity to tag Betsy the shark with an accelerometer, a tag that monitors the fine-scale movements of the shark following its release. The tags that Whitney will use during the expedition are funded through the Waitt Foundation Rapid Ocean Conservation grant program.

The accelerometer tag that Whitney attached to Betsy’s fin is designed to stay on for two weeks, then release from the shark and float to the surface so he can retrieve it and collect the data. Leaving the accelerometer on for so long is a bold move because there’s no telling where Betsy will travel and whether the scientists will be able to retrieve the tag once it pops off the fish.

“We have no idea how far away this shark will swim by the time the tag comes off and we have to recover it,” Whitney said. “If we're able to get it back, we'll be rewarded with the largest accelerometer data set ever obtained from a shark — two full weeks of her fine-scale behavior.”

Betsy, named after expedition supporter Caterpillar's first engine, was caught, tagged and released on Aug. 15. On Aug. 20, the Expedition caught another great white — a 14.2-foot female nicknamed Katharine in honor of Katherine Lee Bates, a Cape Cod native and songwriter best known for her poem and song “America The Beautiful.”

Betsy and Katharine were also tagged with satellite tags that will allow the scientists follow their real-time movements.

The public can follow along on the sharks’ travels through the Atlantic Ocean online through the Global Shark Tracker. 

(And, as they say, there’s also an app for that — you can download it for free from your app store.)

• Listen to Christopher Joyce’s Morning Edition story about the study that aired on National Public Radio.
• Read more about this study on Mote’s web site and see links to other stories about the project.
• See the full paper at PLOS ONE's website.

Mote’s shark research was also recently featured on Tampa Bay’s Fox13. Reporter Cynthia Smoot had the opportunity to join researchers during a recent shark-tagging trip in Boca Grande.

FOX 13 News

• Visit The Aquarium at Mote Marine Laboratory at 11 a.m. any Monday, Wednesday or Friday to see a Narrated Shark Training Session (free with regular admission).
• Or join us for a Shark Encounter, where you can help Mote animal care experts prepare brunch for our sharks and large fish, including blacknose, nurse and sandbar sharks, southern stingrays, tarpon, snook, goliath grouper and more ($45 per person; ages 13 and older. Guests younger than 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Details.)