This 12-Foot Great White Shark Is Not Where It’s Supposed to Be, Scientists Say

In October 2025, researchers at the marine research group OCEARCH tagged a 1,000-pound juvenile female great white in Nova Scotia’s Mahone Bay. The shark, whom scientists dubbed Ernst, has been making her way south ever since—and recently, she popped up in a spot where few sharks of her species have gone before.

A Shark on the Move

Satellite pings (which register every time Ernst surfaces) show the shark traveling down the east coast of the U.S. In mid-December, she was about 150 miles off the southwestern coast of Florida in an area known as Pulley Ridge. OCEARCH founder and expedition leader Chris Fischer told SWNS news that Pulley Ridge is “a super biodiverse place with a tremendous volume of life.” 

From there, Ernst headed even further into the Gulf of Mexico: On January 24, her satellite tag pinged around four miles off of Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Ernst’s latest ping, recorded on January 30, placed the shark even further west, near Horn Island off the Mississippi coast. She traveled more than 3,100 miles in around 90 days.

“The fact that sharks are migratory, especially white sharks, has been known for quite some time,” Sean Powers, director of the Stokes School of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of South Alabama, told Gulf Coast Media. “But the fact that the shark went all the way from Nova Scotia to the Gulf in about 90 days is just amazing to think about.”

Great white sharks aren’t uncommon in the Gulf of Mexico, but Ernst has traveled further west than others of her species typically do. “She has really moved into one of the farther parts of what we see them as moving west,” Fischer told SWNS. “[For] the majority of the sharks, this is pretty far reach.” 

It’s also unusual that Ernst is so close to shore, but according to Fischer, it’s “a great sign for the region because this is a signal that there’s a lot of life and a lot of biodiversity.” 

Great whites can grow to around 20 feet long and weigh 4,500 pounds, according to NOAA. Ernst, a juvenile, is likely in her twenties; she won’t reach sexual maturity until she’s around 33 years old (male white sharks, on the other hand, mature at around 26 years old). They can be found around the world in temperate and subtropical waters, and they migrate seasonally to stay in waters ranging in temperature from 50° to 80°F. In the U.S., you can find great whites from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean on the east coast, and from Alaska to California and Hawaii on the west coast. 

What’s the Longest Migration by a Great White Shark?

Ernst has traveled more than 3,000 miles, but that’s nothing compared to the migration undertaken by Alisha, a white shark who made a one-way migration of nearly 23,000 miles from South Africa to Indonesia in 2012–2013. The previous record—nearly 12,500 miles—belonged to a great white named Nicole, who traveled between South Africa and Australia in 2005.

Want to see where Ernst will pop up next? You can follow her path for yourself here.