The latest tourist swinging by New York City is a shortfin mako shark – a juvenile female who is just passing by on her epic travels.
Fitted with a sophisticated SPOT satellite tag and tracked in near real-time on an online, interactive website hosted by Nova Southeastern University’s Guy Harvey Research Institute (GHRI), this female is skirting by NYC as she heads north on an amazing year’s journey that has, so far, covered more than 10,000 miles.
The 140-pound, female shortfin mako, dubbed Jiffy Lube2, was tagged last May off Ocean City, Md.
Scientists from the NSU’s GHRI tagged, released and tracked 13 makos in 2013 and 2014 off Ocean City, Maryland. Named for the sponsor of her SPOT tag, Jiffy Lube2’s journey has gone as far south as the Bahamas, then northeast to Bermuda, then deep into the North Atlantic where she turned back east to Nova Scotia, Canada and then south near Ocean City and is now in the vicinity of New York City, some 80 miles off the coast.
If she were a car, this mako shark would have had to visit her local Jiffy Lube three times for an oil change! You can follow Jiffy Lube2 on her travels online at http://www.ghritracking.org.
