A 522-pound great white shark was tracked near Ocean City, N.J.
Penny, as she's known, swam north from North Carolina, according to OCEARCH, a nonprofit organization that tags and tracks sharks.
A great white shark was swimming in the shores of Ocean City, N.J., on Memorial Day.
The 522-pound shark, named Penny by marine researchers, was identified by OCEARCH, a nonprofit group that tags and tracks sharks. Her tracker “pinged” at 6:45 a.m. Monday, meaning she broke the surface of the water.
Penny, a juvenile white shark measuring 10 feet, 3 inches, was tagged by OCEARCH on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, off Ocracoke, at the end of April. She last surfaced two weeks ago east of the Virginia coast.
It’s normal for great white sharks to surface near New Jersey during this time of year, said OCEARCH spokesperson Paige Finney. They typically migrate north for their “summer and fall foraging,” Finney said.
There was no indication Penny had any interaction with humans during her visit to Ocean City, but it marks the second time this month that a shark has been suspected in Jersey Shore waters.
Last week, a 15-year-old Chester County girl was bitten by a shark while surfing in Stone Harbor, making her one of nearly 30 confirmed victims of an unprovoked shark attack in New Jersey.
» READ MORE: Chester County teen bitten by shark at Jersey Shore: ‘I felt a tug on my foot that pulled me under water’
“When entering the ocean pay attention to your surroundings,” Chris Fischer, OCEARCH’s founder, wrote in a Facebook post announcing Penny’s surfacing. “Look for quiet areas to swim and if you see areas full of life (bait with birds diving, gamefish crashing, etc.) sit on the beach and watch until it passes by in the current.”