On July 3 the Atlantic Shark Institute (ASI) announced it had deployed an acoustic tag into a great white shark. This is the just the second time a great white shark has been tagged using this technology in Rhode Island waters, and the second time the ASI has tagged a great white shark in less than three weeks. The first great white was tagged on June 12th. This shark was a female, 5 1/2 feet long and a rare juvenile, according to the ASI. “This is really remarkable” said Jon Dodd, Executive Director of the Atlantic Shark Institute. “To wait so long to deploy the first acoustic tag on a white shark in RI history was truly a watershed moment for us and this critical research, but to tag a second white shark this soon thereafter is really stunning to all of us” added Dodd. “This is the third juvenile white shark we’ve been able to tag in less than a year and each one is going to allow us to fill in the complex and growing puzzle of this elusive species and age class,” he said. It should be noted that on the same day the Atlantic Shark Institute tagged the young white shark, a young minke whale was found dead and floating in the Harbor of Refuge close to where the shark was tagged and released. “Clearly sharks, and whites sharks specifically are really attracted to whale carcasses, and the slick that they create,” Dodd said. The acoustic tag will last for 10 years and will allow the Atlantic Shark Institute and researchers to follow the female shark’s movements for many migrations. Every time the shark passes within 500-800 yards of an acoustic receiver, it will register the day and time that she swam by. Fewer than 300 white sharks have been tagged in the NW Atlantic using this technology and the vast majority of those have been adult and sub-adult sharks. This study is being done in partnership with the RI Department of Environmental Management. To learn more about the Atlantic Shark Institute and all their research, you can visit them at www.atlanticsharkinstitute.org or on Facebook or Instagram. (Photo courtesy of ASI)