Article Courtesy: miamiherald.com | By: Howard Cohen | Originally published: 12/15/2018 | Please click here for original article.
Bruce the mechanical shark in Steven Spielberg’s classic film “Jaws” may have achieved cinematic immortality but flesh-and-blood shark Katharine has her own Twitter page.
And the self-described “misunderstood but sassy girl” used the social media platform to announce to her more than 57,000 followers that, like many snowbirds, she’s already made it down to Florida waters.
On Nov. 28, @Shark_Katharine (via her researcher friends, perhaps) tweeted that she had “Made it to the Sunshine State a little earlier than I normally do…this sassy shark needs a little vacation in warm waters.”
More recently, on Tuesday evening, the Ocearch-tagged 14-foot-2-inch, 2,300-pound female white shark officially “pinged” on the research group’s platform. She was letting researchers know that she was north of Jupiter and headed in a southern direction.
If Katharine continues on her path — and why wouldn’t she? The water’s fine — by Saturday afternoon she is probably pretty close to the coast off West Palm Beach.
In 2013, Katharine was tagged off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The shark was named for the poet and activist Katharine Lee Bates, best known for writing the words for “America the Beautiful.” Bates died at 69 in Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1929.
Katharine’s taste for the warmer waters of Florida in the winter months is shared among her fellow sharks because Ocearch has received pings from tags on Nova, an 11 foot-6-inch, 1,186-pound great white that announced on Thursday evening that he was in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of the Florida Keys.
Nova was recently tagged by Ocearch in September in Nova Scotia.
Then there’s Jefferson, also first tagged in September in Nova Scotia, in Hirtle’s Beach waters, and measuring 12-foot, 7-inches.
Jefferson a white shark, was named for the Jefferson’s Bourbon company for its role in helping fund some of Ocearch’s research activities.
Jefferson pinged on the night of Dec. 1 off the coast between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach.
Above: Image courtesy Ocearch.