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ASBURY PARK, NJ – Nukumi, a mammoth-sized female great white shark with a satellite beacon on her dorsal fin, has reached the Jersey coast.
Pronounced “noo-goo-mee,” Nukumi is 17 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 3,541 pounds, making her one of the ocean’s largest predators.
She was tagged by OCEARCH on October 2, while swimming off the south coast of Nova Scotia, during the group’s month-long expedition to the Canadian coast.
OCEARCH is a non-profit research group that places great white shark satellite tracking beacons in order to gather scientific information on the shark’s life cycle. The group began its work in 2007.
Shark movements are tracked in real time with the Global Shark Tracker application from OCEARCH. A “ping” occurs when the animal’s dorsal fin is above water long enough for the satellite to detect its location. The location is then marked on the app. Nukumi went nuts off New Jersey on Saturday.
© Chris Ross / OCEARH
Nukumi, a 17-foot, 2-inch, 3,541-pound female shark, seen aboard the research vessel OCEARCH on October 2, when she was captured long enough by researchers to place a satellite tag on her and take biological samples .
Researchers estimate that Nukumi is over 50 and could have given birth to as many as 100 puppies during her lifetime. But there is still a lot to learn about the reproductive cycle of great white sharks.
Her name refers to the wise old grandmother of the same name who is spoken in legends by the Native American Mi’kmaq, a culture deeply rooted in the Canadian Maritime provinces.
Chris Fischer, leader of the OCEARCH expedition and founding president, said last month that the name “jumped right at us. It’s a fitting name – she’s a matriarch.”
Fischer, who observed her marking, said she was marked by the battle of a lifetime in the ocean. He observed scars on his face and stomach, which he said were most likely due to fights with seals and babies.
At around 50, she also escaped fishermen in the 1970s and 1980s, when hunting great white sharks was considered bravado and no protection existed for the fish. It is now illegal to catch them in the United States
Fischer said Nukumi was “winning the battle for natural selection” and that the great white shark population needed more of its genetics to pass on.
Nukumi is the largest great white shark that OCÉARCH has tagged in the western Atlantic Ocean. She is larger than the great white shark Mary Lee.
Mary Lee was 16 feet, 3,456 pounds when tagged in 2012 off Cape Cod. Its satellite tag went silent in 2017. Fischer then said the battery may have died.
Tag stacks typically last for five years, although the tag stack of Katherine, a 2,300-pound female great white shark that OCEARCH tagged in 2013, continues to sting.
Nukumi has traveled 991 miles since being tagged. She could migrate to the southeast coast of the United States, a similar route that Mary Lee and Katherine have proven.
Follow Dan Radel on Twitter: @DanRadelAPP.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: At over 3,500 pounds, this great white shark swims off the coast of New Jersey
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