A 14-foot great white shark has been tagged off South Carolina.
Chip Michalove with Outcast Sports Fishing caught the female shark February 1.
The group was 16 miles off the coast of Hilton Head when they hooked the large female.
Once the shark was near the boat, it was fitted with tracking devices, but during the tagging, the shark managed to take a bite of the boat.
“Just like any animal, they want to get the hell out of town,” Michalove told WLTX19. “You grab anything wild they’re going to bite you to get loose.”
This shark had several scars as well.
“She had some old battle wounds on the left side of her face from either mating or something she went after took a couple of chunks out of her,” he said. “They looked like they were pretty old.”
White sharks are known to migrate off the Carolina coast during winter months and Michalove has taken advantage of this. He has caught and tagged a total of five great whites during the season, which runs from December to March.
“Technology has advanced so much where we know where these animals are moving [via tagging] and now they can learn from them and learn how to protect them and preserve them,” he said. “I’ve been putting transmitters on them putting three different tags in them to learn as much as we can.”
Several of the tagged sharks be tracked using the apps made by OCEARCH and Sharktivity.
Not only has Michalove tagged white sharks, but he also tagged an 11-foot tiger shark in May of 2014. The shark named Miss Michalove in honor of Chip’s mother who passed away from cancer in 1998, has traveled over 2,114.359 miles.
