By STACY LIBERATORE, US SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR
Published: 18:41 BST, 19 August 2026 | Updated: 18:49 BST, 19 August 2026
The largest male great white shark ever recorded in the Atlantic has suddenly appeared in Canadian waters after prowling the US East Coast.
Nicknamed Contender, the predator measures a whopping 13 feet and nine inches in length and weighs nearly 1,700 pounds.
OCEARCH, a non-profit group focused on shark research and ocean conservation, recorded a ping from its tracker on Wednesday at 12.03pm ET, in the waters between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, near the entrance to the Strait of Belle Isle.
Contender first surfaced near the eastern tip of Anticosti Island on August 15 before traveling northeast through the Gulf of St Lawrence and pinging again four days later near Quebec's remote Lower North Shore.
These pings come months after Contender's tracker fell silent in late April while he was swimming near North Carolina.
The massive shark reappeared on July 10, but that brief signal failed to reveal his exact location.
The latest data now confirms that he traveled far north into the colder waters of eastern Canada after covering thousands of miles along the US coast.
OCEARCH stressed that gaps in the tracking data do not mean Contender disappeared, as his satellite tag can transmit only when his dorsal fin breaks the ocean's surface.
OCEARCH tagged 'Contender' in January 2025, a white shark close to 14 feet in length and weighs over 1,600 pounds
Wednesday's sighting was called a 'Z-ping,' meaning Contender spent only a few moments at the surface before diving back into the Atlantic.
That signal burst did not give Argos, the orbiting satellite system tracking tagged sharks, enough time to lock on to Contender and determine an exact location near the US.
Argos satellites can only pick up the pings from sharks when their entire fin comes out of the water and the signal is transmitted to space. With a longer signal, the satellites are able to show shark fans where each tagged creature is in real time.
So, for the time being, scientists only know that Contender is still alive and active somewhere near US beaches and possibly near a surprising new hunting ground for great whites in the North Atlantic.
