“While it is sad to learn that an individual has died, documenting these events is essential for long-term population studies,” CCS wrote on Facebook, later adding, “Remember to keep your distance from whale carcasses, whether at sea or on land. The cause of his death is not known at this time.

This whale was well-known to CCS scientists, as well as whale watchers off the coast of Massachusetts. The scientists were able to identify the individual as an unnamed catalogued whale, the 2020 calf of Venom. The Center for Coastal Studies responded to the report of a humpback whale carcass floating south of Stellwagen Bank. In addition to the shark researchers, there were numerous whale watchers who got to watch the sharks feast last week. Researchers said the whale carcass will provide nourishment to species from the surface to the deep for years to come.

One of the sharks there was estimated to be a whopping 18 feet long. The six white sharks known to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy team included: Pipit, a 15-footer tagged in 2017 with 780 total detections and Web, a male 12-footer tagged in 2017 with 11,685 total detections. While on a scientific mission to study basking sharks, researchers aboard a Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary vessel responded to a humpback whale carcass sighting. “I just got splashed by a great white shark,” Skomal said in a NOAA Sanctuaries video as the sharks descended upon the whale blubber. Greg Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries was able to tag five of the sharks. Six white sharks were known to the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy team - Pipit, Web, Mark, Right Eye, Skyline and Iceland - and two large females were new to the researchers. The sharks were served up on a silver platter to the researchers, who ended up tagging five of the great whites that were feasting on a dead humpback whale off of Provincetown.Įight sharks over a two-day period were seen feeding on the dead whale on NOAA’s Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The only two fishes that grow larger than Great Whites are the whale shark and the basking shark, both filter feeders that eat plankton. The shark was first spotted in Mexico by. The shiver of great white sharks devouring a whale carcass off the Cape last week led to a golden opportunity for shark researchers to tag these apex predators. Deep Blue is a female great white shark that is estimated to be 6.1 m (20 ft) long and over fifty years old.

Deep blue shark eating whale