A pair of great white sharks and a sea turtle are basking off the coast of Newfoundland, tracker shows
Tourist season doesn't exclude marine life
Newfoundland's most recent visitors aren't tourists coming from away: instead, it's a leatherback sea turtle named Patricia from Florida and two great white sharks named Scot and Mahone from Nova Scotia who've decided to spend some time near the island's rugged coast.
The two sharks and sea turtle are trackable through ocean research non-profit Ocearch's online shark tracker alongside dozens of other sharks, turtles, and dolphins across North America.
Ocearch senior data scientist John Tyminski said Scot's position in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence is common. The shark is centred around the Magdalen Islands to feed.
"They're up here mostly after seals, and that area seems to be really productive and has a lot of seals and a lot of food for these sharks," he said. "We think the seals are probably the driving force that brings them up to Atlantic Canada."
However, Mahone's trip around the Bonavista Peninsula isn't typical for Ocearch's tagged white sharks.
Tyminski said they've tagged 92 sharks in the area. Mahone's location pinged around the Bonavista Peninsula between Sept. 30 and Oct. 2.
It was the farthest north along Newfoundland's east coast an Ocearch shark has gone.
"Mahone is doing something a little different than we've seen with any of our other tagged white sharks," Tyminski said. "He's kind of on a sort of northward path, and it's getting into quite cold water up there too."
Mahone likely went north for food. As of Friday, the shark had turned around and is now travelling southbound.
"They have an incredible sense of smell that may be drawn to a number of seals or perhaps even a dead whale," he said.
On Wednesday, the shark was off the coast of Trepassey Bay; by Friday, it had reached the Grand Banks.
As winter approaches, Tyminski said it's possible Mahone could go as far as Mexico.
"They're just like snowbirds," Tyminski said. "We've had, believe it or not, white sharks that have been in Atlantic Canada all the way into, say, the west side of the Gulf of Mexico, even in Mexican waters."
Turtles are regular visitors
Patricia the leatherback sea turtle's travels to the Gulf of St. Lawrence isn't unusual, though.
Derek Aoki tracks Patricia and other marine life through Florida Atlantic University and Loggerhead Marine Life Centre. He said Florida turtles go to Atlantic Canada to forage for food.
"Turtles will kind of enter the gulf and then just pretty much do loops around searching for food, foraging all that for a couple months," Aoki said.
Patricia is the heaviest turtle his group has ever weighed. She was 1,200 pounds during nesting season, but he expects the turtle to be much heavier now.
"She's probably a good 1,800 to 2,000 pounds now," he said.
With a diet primarily of jellyfish, Aoki said the sea turtles behave like snowbirds, too.
"They just hit Canada for kind of a quick little buffet of jellyfish, and once they get their fill, they're coming back to warmer waters," he said.
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