A 12-foot great white shark has been spotted off the coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico

A 12-foot great white shark weighing more than 1,200 pounds has been pinged in the Gulf of Mexico, less than 50 miles from the Florida coast.

The shark, which is being tracked by research group Ocearch, was about 43 miles from St. George’s Island around 11 a.m. on March 6.

Over the past two years, the shark, named Maple, has spent time on the east coast of the United States, traveling between the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of St. Lawrence west of the island of Newfoundland in Canada.

Their arrival in the Gulf roughly coincides with spring break when thousands of students will be visiting various coastal destinations in the US and Florida.

Maple, pictured, was first tagged by the non-profit Ocearch in Nova Scotia in September 2021. Since then she has clocked up nearly 10,000 miles

The great white had a wound on the left side of her body that was thought to have been inflicted by another greater white shark

Great Whites are strong swimmers but can move at speeds of up to 35 miles per hour Maple’s proximity to Florida is not uncommon.

“It’s not uncommon for great white sharks to be 43 miles or closer to shore, it all depends on the region,” Paige Finney, a spokeswoman for Ocearch, told DailyMail.com.

Last April, Maple was in the same region and a little closer to shore on St. George Island,” she added.

Maple was tagged by the Ocean Research Group in Nova Scotia in September 2021 and named after the maple leaf, one of Canada’s national symbols.

Since then she has clocked up nearly 10,000 miles.

At the time of her tagging, she was an infant and was 11 feet and 7 inches long and weighed about 1,264 pounds.

Finney said that two years later she may well be taller than she was then. Female Great Whites are larger than males and tend to average 15 to 16 feet in length when fully grown.

When inspected in 2021, Maple had a wound on the left side of her body that was believed to have been inflicted on her another great white shark.

Maple was recorded in the same region within the gulf near the shore of St. George Island last April

It is not uncommon for maple to appear less than 50 miles from the Florida coast. She was similarly close last year, but it coincides with spring break, when thousands of students across the country will be visiting coastal Florida towns

Spring breakers from across the country have descended on Florida’s coastal cities and towns. Some are pictured near the beach in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday March 4th

Just a day after Maple surfaced in the Gulf, another nearly 10-foot great white shark surfaced across Florida and was being tracked by Ocearch.

The juvenile Tancook shark, also originally tagged in Nova Scotia, surfaced about 70 miles from Jacksonville Beach.

Ocearch has been tagging sharks and other animals around the world for more than a decade.

The shark is lifted out of the water and a small satellite dish is attached to its dorsal fin.

Though the organization has helped uncover mysteries surrounding the elusive great white shark, it has also generated much controversy.

The non-profit organization is led by Chris Fischer and at the heart of its operations is a 38-meter shark research vessel that cruises the seas, Reader’s Digest in Canada reported in 2021.

According to the publication, many researchers embed marks with a harpoon under a shark’s skin while it’s swimming or pinned to the side of a boat.

Ocearch lures sharks onto the ship and into a working deck raised via a hydraulic elevator that lifts them out of the water so they can be worked on.

Researchers can then take blood, muscle, and even parasite samples. In addition to pop-up satellite and acoustic tags, they screw the temperature-transmitting tag to the fin.

Ocearch lures sharks onto a 38-meter vessel equipped with a hydraulic elevator to lift the shark out of the water

Back in 2016, Ocearch came across a research team led by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, which it had been Examining the abundance, migration and behavior of whites along the state’s beaches, according to the Scientific American.

When Oceanch arrived, the two research groups came into conflict.

“It’s extremely egregious,” biologist Greg Skomal, who led the state study, told the publication.

“We just respectfully asked them to wait. I don’t know why they can’t.”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk