Image Credit: Wikimedia
Last weekend, Ocean City, South Carolina received news that they had an unexpected visitor in shallow waters.
Unbeknownst to beach goers, Septima the Tiger Shark was cruising along the coast.
The tiger shark pinged in the middle of the Isle of Wight Bay around 2:30 p.m. and then again at 3:10 p.m. Awesome Ocean readers will remember the term “pinged” from this article on Katherine the Great White Shark. For those who are new to Awesome Ocean, sharks tagged with a satellite transmitter by OCEARCH, a stellar organization dedicated to tracking and protecting sharks, “ping” when they breach the water’s surface long enough to communicate with the satellite. By tagging sharks, researchers have been able to understand and monitor swim patterns and movements year-round.
Septima is a 12-foot-long, half ton shark tagged by OCEARCH on May 30 in South Carolina. Tiger sharks are named for the similarity of the stripes on their body to land-roaming tigers and grow to be 15 feet long. They are known to swim in deep water but occasionally follow prey into shallower zones.
If you are planning on traveling to South Carolina beaches any time soon, you can breathe easy. Septima did not resurface until August 4th and she was already 97 miles away!
According to Ocean City lifeguards, there were no human encounters with Septima. Captain Arbin of the Ocean City Beach Patrol said that the beach is no stranger to shark visits, with small sand sharks making regular appearances. These miniature sharks are not known for attacking humans, usually swimming harmlessly alongside people enjoying the surf.
Tiger Sharks do not have the same reputation as the infamous Great White Sharks. They are not known for attacking humans and also do not have a sense of taste, which makes them excellent scavengers.
So what’s the moral of the story? They may look a little scary, but they help clean up our oceans.
Source: http://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2014/08/04/ocean-city-shark/13586967/