Share: 

Immature great white tracked near Delaware Bay

360-pound Cisco swims 2,000 miles since October 2016
May 26, 2017

Story Location:
Cape Henlopen
Lewes, DE
United States

Looks like tourists aren't the only ones headed to the Delaware beaches Memorial Day weekend.

Around 4 a.m. May 26, long before cars were packed up and headed toward the Cape Region, a young great white shark pinged at the mouth of the Delaware Bay.

Cisco, an immature male weighing about 360 pounds, broke the surface of the water with his dorsal fin, transmitting a signal from its tracking tag to a satellite. OCEARCH, a nonprofit organization researching great whites and other large predators, tagged the 8-foot, 7-inch shark in Nantucket, Mass., in October 2016.

Since then, Cisco has traveled down the East Coast, turning around after swimming off the coast of South Carolina. Cisco has traveled more than 2,000 miles in the Atlantic Ocean since he was tagged.

On OCEARCH's shark profile, researchers say Cisco was named for Cisco Beach on Nantucket and for Cisco Brewery, which created Shark Tracker Light Lager to support the organization's research.

Cisco is just a baby compared to the famous Mary Lee, another great white tracked by OCEARCH. She found her way into the Delaware Bay in spring 2015. Mary Lee is a mature, 16-foot, 3,456-pound great white. Mary Lee last pinged the evening of May 25, many miles off the coast of Ocean City, Md.

To follow Cisco's journey – and all the other sharks, like Mary Lee, that have been tagged by OCEARCH – go to www.ocearch.org.

Subscribe to the CapeGazette.com Daily Newsletter