{"id":362762,"date":"2025-12-22T00:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T00:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362762\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T00:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T00:34:14","slug":"largest-male-shark-contender-spotted-moving-south-near-florida-georgia-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/362762\/","title":{"rendered":"Largest male shark Contender spotted moving south near Florida Georgia line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone\u2019s favorite white shark, Contender,<\/a> is back on the move again, this time toward warmer seas for the\u00a0winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contender caught attention<\/a> in January, when he was tagged by nonprofit\u00a0OCEARCH<\/a>, off the coast of the\u00a0Florida\/Georgia\u00a0line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was the largest male white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic, OCEARCH said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

OCEARCH is dedicated to researching and protecting sharks, whales, sea turtles and other\u00a0ocean\u00a0life, tagging these animals to track and study their migration habits and behaviors from afar.<\/p>\n

In 2025, we watched Contender\u2019s migration pattern as he moved north for the summer<\/a> in search of food, making pit stops along\u00a0Cape Hatteras, before heading up to\u00a0Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By November, he was headed south again and pinged off\u00a0New Jersey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now as we wrap up the year and bundle up for the cold weather, Contender is moving south to get some\u00a0Florida\u00a0sunshine for the holiday season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contender\u2019s latest ping on Sunday showed he was hanging out off the coast of\u00a0Jacksonville<\/a>, where he\u2019s likely to stay or keep moving south until springtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contender, the largest male white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic, in a photo released on Aug. 10, 2025. OCEARCH \/ SWNS<\/p>\n

Contender\u2019s latest ping on Sunday showed he was hanging out off the coast of\u00a0Jacksonville, where he\u2019s likely to stay or keep moving south until springtime. OCEARCH\/X<\/p>\n

Contender caught attention in January, when he was tagged by nonprofit\u00a0OCEARCH, off the coast of the\u00a0Florida\/Georgia\u00a0line.\u00a0 OCEARCH \/ SWNS<\/p>\n

OCEARCH highlighted Contender\u2019s migration patterns, along with a few other white sharks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs water temperatures shift, these sharks are heading into warmer waters, giving us a real-time look at seasonal migration in action,\u201d OCEARCH said in a post to Instagram about the sharks.<\/p>\n

Ripple, Danny and Baker, three other male white sharks, are also on the move.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baker, a 12-foot, 1,400-pound adult white shark, was pinged off the coast of\u00a0South Carolina\u00a0on Dec. 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Danny is a sub-adult white shark, clocking in at 9 feet long and 460 pounds, was lounging off the Florida Keys on Saturday.<\/p>\n

By November, he was headed south again and pinged off\u00a0New Jersey.\u00a0 OCEARCH\/Facebook<\/p>\n

OCEARCH highlighted Contender\u2019s migration patterns, along with a few other white sharks.\u00a0 OCEARCH \/ SWNS<\/p>\n

Ripple, another sub-adult white shark, was tagged off the coast of Nova Scotia in late September. OCEARCH has tracked his movement down south, where he was recorded on Wednesday off the Coast of\u00a0New Orleans<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom southern coastal routes to offshore movement, each new ping helps scientists better understand how white sharks respond to changing conditions throughout the year,\u201d OCEARCH said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the holidays fast approach, only time will tell where Contender and the other white sharks will hang out for the remainder of winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

You can track Contender, Baker, Danny, Ripple and 400 other ocean animals in real time using the\u00a0free OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker app<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone\u2019s favorite white shark, Contender, is back on the move again, this time toward warmer seas for the\u00a0winter.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,9460,194,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-362762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-sharks","10":"tag-us-news","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}