GREAT WHITE SHARKS IN TEXAS WATERS – July/August 2021

THE PRESENCE OF great white sharks in the Gulf of Mexico is undeniable. Now, a great white off the Texas coast has been confirmed.

Last February, we broke the story about Acadia, a 1,000-pound female great white tagged by research group Ocearch in Nova Scotia in September 2020.

With her satellite tag “pinging” about 140 miles off the Texas coast, she has “z-pinged” twice which means the transmitted signal did not give an exact location. That means Acadia could be farther from the coastline or perhaps closer.

Digging past easily accessible research data, there is fascinating information about great whites in the Gulf.

In a 2014 I wrote a piece for Tide magazine called “Jaws Rising” that included an excerpt from Seasonal Distribution and Historic Trends in Abundance of White Sharks in the Western North Atlantic published by PLOS One.

It details that redfish are among the items preferred by the Gulf’s great whites.

“Analysis of white shark stomach contents from this region are extremely limited, however, documented prey items include dolphins, sharks, red drums, sea turtles, and squid.”

Great whites feeding on redfish might seem at odds with the images we see of them throwing sea lions into the air in the northern Pacific and off the coast of South Africa, but as time goes on, it seems there is much to learn about these intensely apex predators.

NOAA has some extremely interesting older data on great whites in the Gulf of Mexico. Their earliest recorded white shark was off the coast of Sarasota, Florida on a set line in the winter of 1937. Another specimen was caught in the same area in 1943.

In February 1965, a female was captured in a net intended for bottlenose dolphins at Mullet Key near St. Petersburg. In addition, National Marine Fisheries Service officials reported 35 great whites as bycatch in the Japanese longline fishery in the Gulf from 1979 through 1982.

In the 1963 book Shadows In the Sea; Sharks, Skates & Rays, the presence of great whites in Texas waters is mentioned as far back as the 1950s.

A great white shark seven feet long was caught in 15 fathoms, 12 miles off Port Aransas, Texas on February 9, 1950. Seven days later, a second great white 11 feet, 4-inches long was caught in the same area. Ten days later, a third, this one 12 feet, 2 inches long, was caught there. Yet, there has never been a previously reported catch in Texas waters.

The research of Ocearch has shown numerous tagged great whites using the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade, but there are other sharks, not tagged, showing up as well. In early March 2021, a 12-foot great white was caught and released on Pensacola Beach by a group of Idaho anglers fishing with Big John Shark Fishing Adventures. In 2015, Gabriel Smeby caught and released a nine-footer off Panama City Beach, Florida.

And although these recent confirmed catches and scientific surveys of the past are insightful,

I was the kid who saw Jaws and wanted to get in the water. I remember standing with my Dad at the end of the 61st Street Pier in Galveston at age 12, pondering whether there were any great whites in the Gulf and even in Texas waters.

There definitely are now, and if trends continue more are on the way.

 

—story by CHESTER MOORE

 

 

 

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