A massive, 11-foot-long, 1,200 pound great white shark is being tracked off the coast of Florida as thousands of spring breakers flock to the state’s beaches.
Named “Maple,” the female apex predator “pinged” on Monday morning southeast of St. George Island, Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, according to OCEARCH’s Global Shark Tracker.
For the last two winter seasons, Maple has spent a large portion of her time off the gulf coast, the organization said.
OCEARCH said Maple can be identified by a distinctive bite wound on the left side of her body, which they believe came from a fight with an even larger great white.
The organization has been tracking the shark since she was first tagged off the coast of Nova Scotia in September 2001. She gets her name from the Maple Leaf — one of the national emblems of Canada.
According to its website, OCEARCH is an international non-profit that conducts “research on our ocean’s giants in order to help scientists collect previously unattainable data in the ocean.”