Katharine the great white shark is wintering near Melbourne again.
- Katharine is a 14-foot great white shark
- She's fitted with a GPS tracking device for educational purposes
- PREVIOUSLY: Researchers happy Katharine the shark is back in Florida waters
- INTERACTIVE: Track Katharine at Ocearch.org
- RELATED: UF: Florida led nation in unprovoked shark attacks in 2016
The 14-foot, 2,300-pound great white shark — who has her own Twitter account — was fitted with a GPS device by a team from the University of North Florida as part of a project called OCEARCH to learn about the migration habits of sharks.
Ping-a-ling-a-ling! Good morning Melbourne, Florida 🌅 https://t.co/ueYLH3rDSr #sharkgirl #sharkworld pic.twitter.com/60aV2SDQLB
— Katharine The Shark (@Shark_Katharine) January 24, 2017
Katharine returns to the east coast of Florida annually. In the past month, she's traveled from the shallow waters off the Bahamas to near West Palm Beach, north to the waters off Palm Bay and finally near Melbourne.
According to OCEARCH data, she was at her farthest point from Florida in February 2016, far out in the North Atlantic Ocean west of Nova Scotia. By March, she had traveled south to near the island of Bermuda. In July, she had made it off the coast of North Carolina.
The GPS device with which Katharine is fitted registers a "ping," identifying her location, when the shark's dorsal fin breaks the surface of the water and transmits a signal to a satellite.