Great white shark spotted off Virginia Eastern Shore
Carol Vaughn
A great white shark named Katharine was swimming not far off the coast of Northampton County as of Sunday afternoon, according to the shark research organization OCEARCH.
Katharine "pinged" just about 10 miles east of Cobb Island at about 2:40 p.m. Sunday, June 25.
A ping is marked when a tagged shark's dorsal fin breaks the water's surface and transmits a signal to a satellite overhead, which then sends the location back to researchers on Earth, according to the organization's website, www.ocearch.org.
Scientists tagged the immature female shark off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, back in August 2013. Since then the approximately 14-foot-long, 2,300-pound shark has traveled more than 32,000 miles.
Katharine the shark was named for Cape Cod native Katharine Lee Bates, best known for authoring the song "America the Beautiful," according to OCEARCH.ORG.
Katharine, like other great white sharks OCEARCH tracks around the globe, has her own Twitter feed, @Shark_Katharine.
OCEARCH tracks around 300 sharks around the world.
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Another female great white, Mary Lee, has been tracked off the Delmarva Peninsula multiple times in the past several years, including most recently in May, when the 17-foot shark, which is much older than Katharine, was tracked in the Atlantic Ocean east of Assateague Island.
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