{"id":463443,"date":"2026-02-12T03:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463443\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T03:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T03:50:10","slug":"record-setting-great-white-shark-spotted-off-north-carolina-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/463443\/","title":{"rendered":"Record-setting great white shark spotted off North Carolina coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Be on the lookout.<\/p>\n<p>Contender the great white shark<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/11\/13\/us-news\/largest-male-great-white-shark-ever-recorded-pinged-off-new-jersey-coast\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> has been pinged again in the Atlantic<\/a>, about 45 miles southeast of Cape Fear, near Wilmington, North Carolina, on Feb. 8, according to OCEARCH.<\/p>\n<p>Weighing in at almost 1,700 pounds, Contender is the largest male great white shark that OCEARCH has ever tagged in the Western North Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>After being tagged last year off the Florida\/Georgia coast, he spent much of January swimming along Florida\u2019s coast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cContender\u2019s SPOT tag will continue providing real-time location data for the next several years, supporting ongoing white shark research and conservation efforts,\u201d OCEARCH stated in an Instagram post.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The organization added that the great white was named Contender in honor of Contender Boats, Inc., which is a longtime OCEARCH partner whose boats support their offshore research missions.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.61132813;display:block\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38464528\" width=\"361\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/105-miles-off-coast-charleston-117024218.jpg\" alt=\"A large great white shark being held next to a boat by researchers.\" class=\"wp-image-38464528\"  \/>Contender is the largest male great white shark that OCEARCH has ever tagged in the Western North Atlantic. OCEARCH \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1.77777778;display:block\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38464526\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/contender-14ft-great-white-shark-119268976.jpg\" alt=\"Two men tagging a great white shark named Contender next to a boat.\" class=\"wp-image-38464526\"  \/>After being tagged last year off the Florida\/Georgia coast, he spent much of January swimming along Florida\u2019s coast. OCEARCH \/ SWNS<\/p>\n<p>Previously, Contender has been pinged off the Canadian, New Jersey and Massachusetts coasts, to name a few.<\/p>\n<p>Contender and other sharks and sea animals like him can be tracked in real-time using the free OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Be on the lookout. Contender the great white shark has been pinged again in the Atlantic, about 45&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[15773,12604,2256,79,9460,194,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-463443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-atlantic-ocean","9":"tag-great-white-sharks","10":"tag-north-carolina","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-sharks","13":"tag-us-news","14":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463443","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=463443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}