“Most of the time, that shark won’t turn around and bite you,” Burgess said. Signs now warn beachgoers that “whale material” could be in the area.īoth Domeier and Burgess discouraged thrillseekers from diving with the sharks. People have been asked to stay away from the carcass. On Saturday, local and federal authorities towed the sperm whale 15 miles offshore after it drifted onto a reef. Read more: We Now Know Why Great White Sharks Gather in a Mysterious Ocean Void Maybe she’s “ fartin’ like mad,” he added. Or perhaps Deep Blue’s belly is simply a food gut. “She will give birth to 8 to 12 pups this spring, and then return to Guadalupe Island in the fall to mate and start the cycle over again.”īurgess agreed that she could be pregnant. “She has likely been at sea since the late fall of 2017, ” he speculated. Satellite tracking data suggests that most originate near California and Mexico, and that female sharks will roam the deep while pregnant before returning to the coast to give birth.ĭomeier theorized that Deep Blue may be one of these pregnant sharks. Great whites are a rare sight in Hawaii, but they’re not unheard of their presence is even documented in Native Hawaiian ceremonial objects. “I lead the white shark research project at Guadalupe Island and first documented Deep Blue in 1999, 20 years ago,” Michael Domeier, president and executive director of the Marine Conservation Science Institute, told Motherboard in an email. In 2015, Padilla wrote on Facebook that she was “the biggest white shark ever seen in front of the cages in Guadalupe Island,” which somehow became “the largest great white shark ever caught on film.”ĭeep Blue is indeed very large, but shark researchers can’t say for sure that she’s the largest. Her sensational reputation as the “ biggest” shark on record can be attributed to a 2014 Shark Week episode (shot in 2013) in which Mauricio Hoyos Padilla, director of the shark nonprofit Pelagios-Kakunjá, and others filmed the large female near Mexico’s Guadalupe Island. 'Based on photos I can confirm there have been three distinct females recorded over the past few days,' Jeffries told Motherboard in an email.ĭeep Blue became an icon several years ago during Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, though her remarkable size and age-roughly 20 feet long and 50 years old, according to many media reports-are up for debate. In a Facebook post, fellow diver Mark Mohler said at least three great whites were visible, and that Deep Blue could only be seen on Sunday.

Deep blue shark eating whale