Miss Costa, a prolific 12’ 5” great white shark with a sizeable social media following, is taking her annual spring break in the Gulf of Mexico, cruising down the Atlantic from Nantucket, Massachusetts. And she’s tweeting about it.
Miss Costa is being tracked by OCEARCH, the ocean research organization that originally tagged her on September 23, 2016, off Nantucket, and which created a Twitter account for her; the 1,668-pound shark now has 9,500 Twitter followers.
A few days ago, as Miss Costa swam up the Gulf toward the Florida Panhandle, she tweeted: “gulf life = pure bliss.” Earlier, when she was just a few miles off Key West, she wrote: “Florida Keys baby. What a life.”
This is not the first time Miss Costa, named after the sunglass company (it supports OCEARCH), has visited the Gulf of Mexico. In 2017, she hugged the Keys in the first trip recorded by her tracker; last year she spent much of January and February near the Keys before heading into the Gulf.
The Gulf seems to be a popular draw for great whites. Two others, Nova, 11’ 6”, and Cabot, 9’ 7”, have also pinged there recently. Nova later headed over to the Dry Tortugas.
OCEARCH tracks great whites via small transmitters it inserts in their dorsal fins. When the fins break the surface, the transmitter sends a signal up to satellites overhead. Read more:
https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/environment/2019/04/03/miss-costa-another-great-white-
