Shark Tracker Shows Locations Around US in Wake of Attacks

Several large sharks have been tracked in U.S. waters this week, including a massive 13-foot great white that was detected Wednesday off the coast of Florida.

This came the day before several people were attacked by sharks in Texas and Florida. Meanwhile, sharks have been tracked off the coast of Nova Scotia, with another off Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

Two people were bitten and a third injured during an attack at a beach on Texas' South Padre Island, while one person was bitten at Florida's New Smyrna Beach in Volusia County, all on Independence Day.

The Texas attack occurred at around 11 a.m. local time and resulted in two people being bitten by a shark. One received a "severe" bite to the leg, with a third injured while trying to help, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In a statement, the department said: "On July 4, Texas Game Wardens, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), the South Padre Island Police Department (SPI PD) and Cameron County Park Rangers responded to reports of people being bitten by a shark at South Padre Island, within city limits. Details at this time indicate that two people were bitten and two people encountered the shark but were not seriously injured."

The statement continued, "The two victims who were bitten were transported to Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville where one is being treated and the other has been flown out for further treatment."

At Florida's New Smyrna Beach, a 21-year-old Ohio man was bitten by a shark Thursday afternoon while he played football in knee-deep waters. He was taken to a hospital for treatment.

The species of shark involved in these attacks remains unknown. Three shark bites occurring on the same day is a rare occurrence in the U.S. Data from the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File show there have been only seven shark bites in Texas since 2012. In the same period, Florida saw 259 bites, 94 of which were in Volusia County.

The most recent great white shark detected by the OCEARCH tracker is 13-foot-3-inch Breton, which was detected just off the coast of Florida's Port St. Lucie, about 130 miles south of New Smyrna Beach. The tracker shows that Breton has been meandering between Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina for the past few months, having swum south from the waters off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland over Christmas.

Two other great whites have recently been tracked off the coast of Nova Scotia. Ormond, a 9-foot-11-inch shark, was detected off the coast of the island on Thursday, while 9-foot 3-inch Anne Bonny was tracked to the waters off Halifax.

There have been no other shark pings on OSEARCH's tracker in the past few weeks, with the exception of a great hammerhead named B.P. Armstrong, which was detected off the Yucatán Peninsula on Friday.

None of these sharks likely had anything to do with the attacks in Florida or Texas.

Most great white sharks along the East Coast swim north to Canada during the summer, before heading south again during the winter months.

"Most, but not all, species of highly mobile sharks in the Northern Hemisphere move southward in the winter, as they are following their food," Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, previously told Newsweek. This is likely why Ormond and Anne Bonny are up in the waters off Nova Scotia this week.

However, Breton appears to be in the wrong part of the country instead of where he should be. This is because not all great whites follow this rule to the letter.

"We often see white sharks move down from Canadian waters to Florida. However, this is not a 'hard and fast' rule," Naylor told Newsweek in October 2022.

"White sharks are quite large and, as a result, have considerable thermal inertia," he continued. "This means they don't 'warm up' or 'cool down' as much as would smaller animals, so temperature per se is less of a driver of movement than is food availability. If you look at multiple white shark tracks in the Northwest Atlantic, you will see that they are all over the place."

In its statement, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said: "Shark encounters of this nature are not a common occurrence in Texas. When bites from sharks do occur, they are usually a case of mistaken identity by sharks looking for food.

"If you see large schools of bait near the shore, this is typically an indicator a predator is nearby, or if you see a shark in the water, calmly exit the water and wait for the predatory wildlife to pass," the department said.

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