A great white shark named Kara has been stirring up chatter among researchers and marine enthusiasts after she was detected off Vancouver Island’s waters this week.

Kara’s location popped up just near Vancouver Island Tuesday, according to Marine Conservation Science Institute (MSCI) president and executive director Michael Domeier.

“Kara has visited Canada! Despite my suspicions, we got a number of quality position estimates that confirm Kara is the first Great White Shark we have ever tracked to British Columbia. Yep, maybe she has a Canadian passport! I expect her to move far offshore soon, but she likes to prove me wrong,” Domeier posted online.

The MSCI team tagged six “huge female white sharks” off the coast of Southern California and has been tracking their movements over the past several months.

In collaboration with Sharktagger and the app Expedition White Shark, the team says it’s been able to track the six sharks scattered between Hawaii, Oregon, California and now one in B.C. 

Domeier first made note of Kara, the 16-foot-long mature female, potentially moving further north on Monday.

“Satellite tagged#greatwhiteshark Kara has been busy. Visiting the Oregon coast, then Eureka California, back to Oregon…and then#Vancouver?” he wrote.

At the time, he also warned the tracking data is not always reliable and was waiting for more data to confirm.

“Don’t believe everything you see when it comes to data from this technology.”

He explains, “These tags do not use GPS, they are very simple radio transmitters and the satellites try to estimate a geographic position based upon the change in frequency of the tag’s transmission as the satellite passes over the tag.”

He adds that errors can occur and “that’s why you see the sharks on land at times.”

So the team continued to watch Kara’s path that they’ve been tracking since October 2025, to see if her northern location could be confirmed.

On Tuesday, March 10, 2026, MSCI president Michael Domeier posted online that his suspicious were confirmed that the pings received on Kara the great white shark had been tracked off Vancouver Island shores. (Expedition White Shark, Instagram).

Then, on Tuesday, he posted there were “a number of quality position estimates that confirm Kara is the first Great White Shark we have ever tracked to British Columbia.”

While it’s the team’s first great white ever tracked to B.C., it’s not the first time great whites have swam into British Columbia,

In 2024, a B.C. woman came in contact with a great white near Haida Gwaii when it washed up on shore. The shark was already dead and researchers hypothesized that the shark may have choked to death on its food.

READ: Four-metre-long Great White Shark washes up on B.C. beach

Apart from great whites, there are a slew of sharks found in B.C. waters, including the salmon shark. Last summer, in July 2025, a salmon shark was spotted near Bamfield.

READ: Salmon shark spotted swimming near Bamfield, B.C. dock

In August 2024, a basking shark was spotted near Salt Spring Island. These sharks can grow up to 12.2 metres or 40 feet long. They are less commonly observed as the Pacific population of a basking shark is listed as “Endangered” under the Species at Risk Act, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

READ: ‘I was really surprised’: Video shows rare sighting of basking shark near Salt Spring Island

As for Kara, it appears she may have already moved further south. Leaving room for error, the Expedition app tracked her near Washington just north of Cape Disappointment around noon on Wednesday.

Image shows screen capture at 11:59 a.m. on March 11, 2026 of Kara the great white shark detected near Washington, north of Cape Disappointment.

If you happen to spot a shark but are uncertain about the particular species, you can take a photo and send it to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. You can also visit the Canadian Pacific Shark Research Lab to learn more.