About ten years ago, an animal with an online following or profile on social media would have seemed a bit weird, but not in 2015. If a search were to be done, hundreds of accounts dedicated to dogs, cats and even sharks, including Twitter famous great white shark, Mary Lee, would be found.
The 16-foot, 3,456- pound shark, Mary Lee, was just spotted along the Jersey Shore, possibly heading for New York. The shark was tagged in 2012 in Cape Cod by OCEARCH, who has been tracking her since then. OCEARCH is a nonprofit organization that researches great white sharks and other large apex predators to obtain data that doesn’t currently exist. Their goal is to protect the animals by increasing public safety and education. Mary Lee was named after the mother of the founding chair of the organization, Chris Fischer. It was said that he gave her this name because he felt the shark was special. The organization currently has more than 100 sharks that have been tagged.
Mary Lee came as close to 10 miles near the Jersey Shore and as far north as Brigantine. In April, Mary Lee’s tracker showed that she was off the coast of Wilmington, which was reportedly the furthest south the shark had been in a year. She has swam close to 20,000 miles since she was first tagged 2 years ago.
Fans of Mary Lee can use the OCEARCH website or Global Shark Tracker app to track the great white year round. OCEARCH is able to keep tabs on Mary Lee thanks to a signal being sent every time her dorsal fin surfaces above the water. Mary Lee can also be followed on Twitter: @MaryLeeShark. The account is full of jokes and random thoughts of Mary Lee’s. The Global Shark Tracker app can also be used to track every shark OCEARCH has tagged to this date.
Mary Lee isn’t the only shark that is on Twitter. Katharine, a 14-foot-long, 2,300-pound shark, was tagged in 2013 in Cape Cod. She was recently spotted near Florida. Katharine’s Twitter handle is @Shark_Katharine. Neither account is affiliated with OCEARCH.
