A nearly 11-foot long great white shark named “Brookes,” was swimming offshore of Long Beach Island on Monday, according to OCEARCH’s global shark tracker app.
The female great white shark actually reached the New Jersey coast on Sunday, the first day of summer, when a satellite picked up the signal on the tag she’s carrying on her dorsal fin while she was southeast of Ocean City.
Brookes is one of several great white sharks that OCEARCH tagged last summer and fall near Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, that have migrated along the New Jersey coast this spring and summer on their way back north.
Brookes, a juvenile female great white shark, seen here when she was briefly captured by OCEARCH near Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia on Sept. 27, 2025.
Those sharks were Bella, Brass Bed, Cross, Nori, Quint and Ripple. All of them appear to be headed back to Nova Scotia, according to OCEARCH’s shark tracker app. OCEARCH marks the shark’s location on the app in real time whenever the satellite picks up a shark’s signal.
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Bella, a 10-foot female great white shark that was tagged last July 18 at Mahone Bay, was back in Nova Scotia waters, and in fact “pinged” Monday at Saint Margaret’s Bay, which is next to Mahone Bay.
Cross, a 9-foot male great white shark tagged Oct. 3 at Mahone Bay was off the southern coast of Nova Scotia on Saturday.
Brookes was named by Kathy Brookes-Weber, who won the naming rights at a fundraiser on Big Tancook Islands, Nova Scotia. OCEARCH partners closely with the Tancook Islands Marine Field Station off Big Tancook Island, Nova Scotia.
For more than a dozen years, OCEARCH, a non-profit research group, has been collecting biological data at capture points and using satellite tags to gather migration routes from the sharks to better understand the life cycle of one of the ocean’s apex predators. With the data, OCEARCH can map essential shark habitats, and inform future conservation efforts to help protect the species.
After being tagged last Sept. 27, Brookes swam all the way to Panama City, Florida, which she reached on April 5.
According to OCEARCH, several of the great white sharks it has tagged have taken the route around Florida and into the Gulf, going as far as New Orleans.
When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him at dradel@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Great white shark Brookes reaches NJ, swimming off Long Beach Island