NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A nearly 1,000 pound Great White Shark was spotted near the New Jersey shore line but experts say its no cause for concern.
Dubbed “Ironbound,” the shark is a mature Great White from Nova Scotia, Canada who was tagged a few years back by Ocearch, a non-profit research group. Last week, Ironbound made his way past the Jersey Shore, likely en route up north.
“This is the time of year where these sharks, they're skinny. It's been a long winter,” Chris Fischer, Ocearch founder and expedition leader told 1010 WINS. “They're lean, they're thin and they really want to get back up north to feed on seals so they can bulk up for next winter.”
Ironbound’s trek to Nova Scotia is not uncommon but it’s a bit too early for him to be there as the water is still too cold for productive feeding, Fischer said.
“I suspect you'll be seeing Ironbound back up by July or so,” Fischer said.
The shark’s name comes partly from the place he was captured— West Ironbound Island in Nova Scotia—and partly an ode to the shark’s personality echoing the island’s rough conditions.
“While he's not the biggest shark we've dealt with up there, he was one of the nastiest sharks we've dealt with up there,” Fischer said. “He was just hard to handle. He came in, he had bite marks all over him from other sharks and had that real kind of male white shark attitude. So we gave them the name Ironbound because we felt like he represented the spirit of the place.”
Ironbound’s New Jersey passage was his first as the shark usually spends his summers and falls in Nova Scotia with the Jersey coastline reserved for younger sharks who feed on squid and mackerel. And, Fischer said, even if Ironbound did come back to New Jersey, you probably won’t run into him anyway.
“The odds of a shark interaction are so low it doesn't really calculate any sort of risk into our lives,” Fischer explained. “And even though we dress up like seals and go swimming, they still tell the difference and we don't fool them very often.”
Fischer’s advice to people is not to stress about a shark but rather to focus on other safety hazards in the ocean, like knowing how to swim.
“We’ve got hundreds of people dying from drowning. And that's one thing we can affect,” Fischer said. “Those are the things you need to really worry about. Not not white sharks.”
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