THE biggest great white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic is back on Florida’s shores with a bellyful of seals looking to dish out “love bites”.
Chris Fischer, founder of research group OCEARCH, has been tracking “Contender” exactly one year ago on January 17, 2025.
Contender is the largest male white shark ever caught in the AtlanticCredit: Instagram/@OCEARCH
He has travelled to the remote Gulf of St. Lawrence, one of the furthest northern pingsCredit: OCEARCH
Fischer hopes that by tracking these apex predators, he will unlock all the ocean’s secrets so that “your great grandkids can have fish sandwiches”.
The adventurer has had a wild ride since he started tagging the predators in 2012, even having a brush with Hong Kong’s “shark fin mafia”.
While on an Africa expedition in 2014, OCEARCH became unwittingly uncovered a criminal poaching operation.
Fischer said: “We tagged over three dozen white sharks there. We were able to see the shark fin mafias were poaching the sharks.
“South Africa was having white sharks disappear.
“Next thing you know, our white sharks start their migrations to the east up Mozambique.
“And then one of them gets killed and the tag gets thrown on the ground in a village.”
More strikingly, a team scientist learned that the poaching scheme went beyond Africa’s shores when he was sent to retrieve the tag.
“They said the finning mafia was giving them the gear and the boats to be able to capture these large sharks.”
“So they killed the shark, brought it in, ate it and sent the fins to Hong Kong.
“I think the most disturbing thing about it was that they said they don’t get paid for the fins, but they get sent down the raw ingredients for crystal meth.
“They said ‘we sell it to our community, and that’s how we monetize the fins.'”
Fischer doesn’t only have to work against malevolent shark poachers, but to “undo what Jaws has done” to people’s perceptions of the beasts.
He believes the shark research community may have finally got one back on Steven Spielberg by helping the younger generation understand sharks’ value through science.
“People over the age of 50 were affected by Jaws. But to young people today, it doesn’t look like a real movie.”
Fischer explains that before this research began, the lack of data fuelled public fear.
“Before our work, the only story that popped up was when there was a shark incident, because there was no data.
“And then you would just have a story and it was about an incident. And then there were no stories until the next one.
OCEARCH have captured and tagged 100s of marine animalsCredit: OCEARCH
Chris Fischer launched the non-profit group in 2012Credit: OCEARCH
OCEARCH have a live tracker on their website where you can follow a range of marine lifeCredit: OCEARCH
“Now, there are stories about these sharks moving all over the world all the time.
“We’re basically swimming with these animals all the time, everywhere, and nothing happens 99% of the time.”
But white sharks do have a fear factor that helps control ocean populations.
“They are the system manager. The apex predator like the lion and the wolf,” Fischer explained.
“They keep the system thriving and they tune it to maximum abundance by their mere presence.
“If the white shark’s not there, all of those seals eat four times more per day than they’re supposed to and they wipe out our fish.
“Where the lion is walking, the game is abundant. If the lion is not walking through, you have system problems.”
For Fischer, Contender’s return to Florida is an opportunity to break shark research wide open.
As a fully mature male of around 30 years old, it is hoped that Contender will help achieve OCEARCH’s mission to reveal the world’s first known mating site.
Their migration maps show that mature male white sharks follow a simple annual rhythm.
Sharks like Breton are what Fischer describes as ‘system managers’Credit: SWNS
Scientific understanding of the beasts will help mitigate fearCredit: OCEARCH
In summer and autumn, the fearsome predators head north to gorge on seals and pack on weight to survive the months ahead.
In winter, they migrate south into warmer waters, where researchers believe mating occurs out of sight of humans.
Fischer explained: “Mating is violent. The males have to bite the females to gain control. It’s a high-risk activity.”
Once mating is successful, Fischer and his researchers believe large females move far offshore to gestate in relative safety, avoiding further attention from males.
“They just want to eat food, be left alone, and live a low risk lifestyle.
“The following May or June, they cruise to their “shark nursery” – the New York and New Jersey Bight – to drop off their pups.”
Tracking mature animals like Contender allows researchers to watch this process unfold in real time, which is something that was impossible just over a decade ago.
Capturing and tagging a shark of Contender’s size is a carefully choreographed operation.
Elite fishermen then hook the animal and guide it calmly alongside the research vessel, keeping stress to a minimum.
All sharks are captured while creating as little stress as possible for the animalsCredit: OCEARCH
OCEARCH use elite fishermen to deliver the sharksCredit: OCEARCH
Fischer said: “The idea is to deliver these animals to the scientist with as low a stress level as possible. Zero stress being perfection.”
The shark is then lifted aboard in a custom cradle while scientists race through more than two dozen research tasks.
This is where the team utilizes “learned helplessness.”
Fischer describes it “like a baby does when you swaddle it and then it gives up and stops crying. That’s learned helplessness.”
“With a shark, the same thing. So if they believe they can get away, they’ll continue to try to get away.
“But if they believe that they can’t, they’ll just give up. So what we do is more like teaching the dog how to heel.”
Blood samples are taken, measurements are logged and tags secured in under 15 minutes, before the shark is released, unharmed, back into the ocean.
Fischer knew straight away that Contender was “exceptional”.
He said: “When you discover a shark like that you go ‘wow’, this is a particularly unique shark.
A team of scientists work quickly to measure and tag the beastCredit: Ocearch/Chriss Ross
They get all their work done in just 15 minutes before releasing itCredit: OCEARCH
“We knew straight away that Contender was special, but getting to this point required massive investment and years of pioneering work.
“It cost us two and a half million dollars back in 2012 to tag the first five animals.
“But then we tracked those five animals for a couple of years and went back out and with the next two and a half million, we tagged 27.”
Fischer also explains that tracking these sharks is vital to protect food security for humans.
When great whites patrol seal colonies, they keep populations in check.
Without them, seals eat far more fish than the ecosystem can sustain, stripping the seas of young stock before it can mature.
“They’re the guardians of our fish,” Fischer explained.
Their mere presence alters behaviour across the food chain, allowing reefs, fisheries and coastal ecosystems to recover and thrive.
This management approach has led to a major ecological turnaround in the USA.
“Now in the United States, we’re in the middle of the great return to abundance.”
Several boats are involved in the capture of the sharksCredit: Robert Snow 2018
The first five sharks cost $2.5million to capture and tagCredit: OCEARCH
“We have more fish and life off of our East and West coast now than we’ve seen in over 50 years,” Fischer says.
He attributes this to aggressive management and science-driven policy.
“Fortunately in the United States, we had a big turning point in 1994… where in the state of Florida, the public voted for a constitutional amendment to ban inshore gillnets.
“And here we are 30 years later. And now there’s not one species of fish in Florida that is in an overfished category. Not one.”
It is why Fischer believes shark conservation is an absolute environmental necessity.
He said: “If you can’t manage the apex predators, then you can’t manage the system. And if you can’t manage the system, you can’t feed your people.”
Looking to the future, he hopes to export this success to the rest of the world.
“We have a playbook now. We know how to bring back an ocean. Any country in the world who wants to manage their ocean can now…
“It took years and years of science and trying different policies. And now we have a playbook that we know works.
“We just want to share it worldwide.”
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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