INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Rescued Great White Shark, Jameson, Spotted Multiple Times Off Chatham

By Dustin Wicksell
Published on: 05:05 PST, Jul 24, 2015

Jameson, the great white shark who became world famous after he was trapped on a Cape Cod beach last week, has apparently survived the experience, having been detected by researchers several times since his rescue.

The shark, a seven-foot-long juvenile, was stranded early last week by a retreating tide, as the Inquisitr previously reported. Though such dire circumstances would usually prove quickly fatal for a white shark, beachgoers kept Jameson wet, preventing him from suffocating in the time that it took rescuers to arrive.

“There was no way for the shark to get to where it could swim, so it just kept flapping and moving over,” witness Kelly Skanell recalled.

Officials were eventually able to drag the shark back into the water by attaching a line to its tail fin, before towing it through the sea to resuscitate it. Though Jameson swam away under his own power, Dr. Greg Skomal asserted that the shark likely had only a 50 percent chance of surviving the stranding.

Researchers with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy now assert that they have detected Jameson multiple times since his rescue, as WCVB reports. Though the first signal seemingly indicated that the shark survived, researchers cautioned that they would need to record the great white more than once to confirm its health. The shark’s tag has since been detected on five days (July 17, 18, 19, 22, and 23), proving that Jameson did indeed survive his ordeal, remaining in the waters off the cape, as NECN reports.

Cynthia Wigren, of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, noted that while researchers previously knew the area where Jameson was stranded was a trap of sorts for white sharks, the beaching has still proven to be unusual.

“Last year we knew that sharks were in that area, and that it got shallow and it was hard for them to get out. It was hard for them to get out, but for a shark to be beached, is a big deal.”

The conservancy is currently engaged in the second summer of a five-year-long study, meant to document the white shark population that congregates off Massachusetts each year. Researchers are also aiming to understand how many of the sharks are repeat visitors, recording their migration patterns with satellite tags.

In recent days, the conservancy has observed multiple great whites off the Chatham coast, tagging several of Jameson’s fellow sharks as the season continues.

[Image: Atlantic White Shark Conservancy via Twitter]

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