Another Baby Great White Shark Tagged in Rhode Island Waters

The waters off Rhode Island's coastline seem to be teeming with great white sharks and one local research group is pretty excited about it.

The Atlantic Shark Institute based in the Ocean State has been busy looking for and tagging juvenile great whites in hopes of learning more about these elusive ocean creatures – and they are clearly finding what they are looking for.

Back in mid-June, the non-profit organization announced that for the first time ever they had placed an acoustic tag on a great white off the Rhode Island shore. Now three weeks later, they have tagged another one.

The Atlantic Shark Institute via Facebook

In a Facebook post late Wednesday afternoon, the researchers said a juvenile female shark about five and half feet long was spotted and tagged near Point Judith. The first great white tagged was around seven feet long and tagged in the same area.

That says to me, perhaps be careful swimming in that area. Point Judith is the point lying between Roger Wheeler State Beach and Scarborough State Beach and pretty close to where a fin was reportedly seen recently. The fin led to swimmers being asked to leave the waters of Salty Brine Beach for over an hour, but it was ultimately deemed not to be a shark.

Still, they are clearly out there swimming around and getting bigger every day. Two juveniles in three weeks must mean great whites are breeding somewhere in the area, right?

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Waters across New England continue to warm up as the summer rolls on, so perhaps these early taggings in Rhode Island are also a sign of a busy shark season across the SouthCoast.

Luckily, these tags will help researchers not only learn about the sharks themselves, but also keep people posted on their locations in case they do decide to swim a little closer to shore next time.

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Categories: Animals, Local Stuff