What to Know
- Researchers are tracking a great white shark in the Long Island Sound for the first time ever, according to the group OCEARCH
- The 9 foot 8 inch sea creature, which has been dubbed Great White Shark Cabot, pinged late Monday morning off the coast of Greenwich
- The shark weighs more than 530 pounds and is named after an Italian explorer; it was first tagged in Nova Scotia
The first great white shark to ever ping in the Long Island Sound had an inauspicious introduction to fame Monday, drawing so much traffic to a research group's website that it stopped working -- and still was having trouble the next day.
OCEARCH, which has long tracked great whites all over the world, broke the news Monday afternoon that a 9 foot 8 inch, 533-pound great white named Cabot (who does have a corresponding Twitter account) pinged earlier that day just off the shore near Greenwich, Connecticut.
Curious as to where Cabot is now? OCEARCH's tracker was still just a whirring wheel as of 9 a.m. Tuesday; at times, the page wouldn't load at all. The tracker was back up before 11 a.m. -- and Cabot was on the move. OCEARCH said the shark, which was the top trending U.S. Google search at one point Tuesday and graced local paper covers on its accelerated launch to global notoriety, had pinged southwest of Montauk earlier in the morning.
Meanwhile, Cabot is psyched by the attention -- and so is the group following it.
"Oops ... looks like my little stunt visiting the Long Island Sound overloaded the @OCEARCH tracker!!! My bad," @GWSharkCabot tweeted Monday afternoon. "The Tracker is running kinda slow since you many of you logged on to check out where I’m at."
OCEARCH also weighed in on the excitement, saying it was "so cool" to be tracking Cabot in the Long Island Sound since great whites virtually never visit this area -- they need consistent water temps between 54 and 75 degrees.
Cabot was first tagged in Nova Scotia in October. It was named after the explorer John Cabot, based on suggestions from Nova Scotians. John Cabot was an Italian explorer known for his 1497 voyage to North America, where he claimed land in Canada for England. He disappeared the next year, believed lost at sea.
