Shark Watch 2017: Great White 'Manhattan' Headed North

Memorial Day weekend 2017 marks the beginning of the summer season on Long Island — and all eyes are on the ocean as a sea of baby great white sharks born in a nursery off the coast of Montauk last summer make their way back up north.

According to Tobey Curtis, shark researcher with the National Oceanic Atmospheric Fisheries Service, last year, working with OCEARCH, nine baby white sharks were tagged off Montauk.

Through October, those sharks spent time a few miles off the beach between Montauk and Fire Island, "patrolling" the length, until they headed south, as far as South Carolina, where they are believed to have spent the winter.

So far this season, Curtis said, there's only an indication of "one, starting to swim back north," the baby great white shark named "Manhattan."

Meanwhile, Mary Lee, who captured the attention of the world when she visited the Hamptons last summer, could be heading to the Jersey Shore for Memorial Day; she last pinged Saturday morning off the coast of Delaware after heading north from Virginia; view her track here.

As the water gets warmer, Curtis said, the great whites are heading back. "Over the next month the pups, who are going to be a year old, will be coming back into the Long Island area," he said.

It's still unclear, he said, how north they will travel, if they will head to Long Island or stay west of Montauk, or instead, if they will travel farther north to Rhode Island or Massachusetts. "We don't really know," Curtis said.

A scientist who was part of the team tagging the baby sharks last year, Curtis said the historic process of monitoring the pups since birth has been invaluable.

"We're all kind of learning at the same pace. It's kind of cool," Curtis said. "The OCEARCH platform helped us to dial in to where the little guys were hanging out. Looking at the historical research and bringing it up to date, as well as doing something new, it's very rewarding," he said.

Shark fears, be gone

As for those who are fearful of the sharks' return, Curtis said they needn't worry. "I tell people the sharks are there, and they've always been there, whether you notice them or not. It's never been an issue. The fact that we have sharks is a sign of a healthy ocean and environment." And, he added, "There's nothing to worry about."

Not only are the sharks spending their time a mile or two off the beach, when the pups head north, they will still only be between 4 to 5 feet long. While they have teeth, and can bite, "they are not a serious threat," Curtis said.

In March, experts said that there's a baby boom of great white sharks expected to head to the area in the coming months — with the massive mama sharks are about to head to the nursery, located off the coast of Montauk, for the big event.

Last year, researchers discovered the first North Atlantic nursery for the fearsome predator in the waters off Montauk, and this year, with the baby sharks tagged, more information than ever before is available to the public, who've taken to avidly following the sharks on social media.

This spring, according to The Virginian-Pilot, there was a "shark party" just off the southeastern coast, with 11 sharks tagged by Ocearch.org pinging and revealing their locations via satellite.

But what East End residents want to know is when the bevy of great whites will be heading north — and will Mary Lee be among the mix?

Mary Lee, the famous 3,400-pound great white shark, has 106K followers on Twitter, made headlines last year when she was tracked off the East Hampton coast.

And excitement is mounting, with residents hoping to catch a sight of Mary Lee as she heads to the Jersey Shore the Memorial Day beach party.

But, according to OCEARCH, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shark research that tracks Mary Lee and about 100 other sharks around the world, she's not due back in the Hamptons until 2018, when she'll be due to give birth again.

"You guys are sitting in a birthing area"

According to Chris Fischer, founder of OCEARCH, the great whites who were all "wintering" down south could be headed back north soon.

"You guys are sitting in a birthing area," he told Patch in an interview. "My best guess would be that the large mature females are going to be coming in during May and June and dropping off their pups in New York, New Jersey and on Long Island — out to Montauk."

The female sharks will drop off the pups and leave, he said.

An OCEARCH team was in the Montauk area last year because Mary Lee had moved into the area.

Mary Lee holds a soft spot in Fischer's heart. "She was named after my mom. We tagged her in 2012 off Cape Cod," he said.

When she made that moved in the New York, New Jersey area and was seen near Southampton and then Montauk, the thought was that she may have given birth. Then, after looking at a scientific paper by Jack Casey and Wes Pratt, and another by Curtis, research indicated that a huge discovery had been unearthed: "We realized maybe that's a birthing site," Fischer said.

Last year, the OCEARCH team caught nine pups, lifted them up onto the ship, and performed research projects including taking gas, blood and tissue samples. New umbilical scars on the pups indicated that it was, indeed, a birthing site, Fischer said, with the pups one to three months old.

"It was a big breakthrough. We confirmed a smattering of data from the past and developed hard data," he said.

Now that the pups are being tracked, a whole new age of discovery has evolved, Fisher said. "Now we are watching the young of the year, watching them define the nursery of the great white shark."

That first year, he explained, is when the pups are most vulnerable. Once they're larger and older, they can avoid various types of gear and danger.

And if the researchers can help those pups succeed, it will be a win-win for future generations, Fischer said.

"They're the lions of the ocean, the balance keepers," he said.

Understanding how they move through the nursery helps ensure an abundance of the entire ecosystem and "an abundance of fish that our future children will eat," Fischer said.

Sharks, Fischer added, live to be more than 70 years old and are not even sexually mature until they are 20; they give birth every other year with an 18-month gestation period. They usually give birth to an average of eight babies that are four and a half feet long and 45 lbs.

The baby great whites off Montauk are balancing the in-shore system, chasing menhaden, mackerel and squid, "eating the weak, the dead and dying so the strong will survive. They're the balance keepers of the water here. When they grow up, they're the balance keepers of the whole North Atlantic."

So far, research indicated that "we are seeing more and more baby white sharks under the current level of pressure. The numbers are increasing with the current level of pressure and that's a great thing, because not much needs to change," Fischer said.

He added that OCEARCH has no agenda and commercial fishermen don't need to worry about impacts on their jobs. "That's not who OCEARCH is. We chase the data wherever the data takes us," he said.

No "Jaws" to worry about

Fischer has a message for the many who've spent decades terrified by "Jaws."

The fear of sharks, he said, is "an irrational fear over something that doesn't statistically exist. You've got to realize, nothing has changed. These baby sharks have been there, off Montauk, for 400 million years. Nothing has changed. We just know now."

To put it in perspective, Fischer said a few hundred people die yearly from dog-related injuries, and 400, from defective toasters. Six die from shark related attacks, he said. "So if you're afraid of sharks you should be afraid to make toast," Fischer said.

He added, "Movies of the past were able to leverage the fear of the unknown. What we are doing now is putting some facts behind the lives of sharks, replacing fear with facts and fascination."

To that end, OCEARCH has a free curriculum program online for children ages K through grade 12, he said, a STEM-based education curriculum integrated into real time, so kids tracking the sharks can learn about math, physics and oceanography, to name a few.

In addition, he said, all the sharks, including Baby Montauk, Hudson and others are social media mavens, so fans can Tweet them and receive answers to their questions on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The OCEARCH team made news last year when they went to tag sharks at the North Atlantic nursery. To read that full prior Patch report, click here.

Photo courtesy of OCEARCH.