'Hatteras Hangout': Why do White Sharks tend to linger around the North Carolina Outer Banks?

A white shark tagged off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada in late September is getting some attention for a stop he made off the shores of Cape Hatteras. 

OCEARCH, a global nonprofit organization dedicated to researching and protecting sharks, whales, sea turtles and other ocean life, tags these animals to track and study their migration habits and behaviors from afar.

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Ripple, a male white shark, was tagged by OCEARCH on Sept. 30 off the coast of Nova Scotia. 

The track he took after being tagged led researchers at OCEARCH to mention a specific pattern white sharks have when it comes to migration. 

Ripple, like many sharks, began his fall migration south toward the U.S. in early October. He covered a lot of ground in just two weeks, traveling over 1,000 miles, OCEARCH said. 

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Then, he did something interesting. Ripple took a brief three-day pause around the coast of North Carolina, near Cape Hatteras, on his way back down south to warmer, food-rich waters. 

The reason he did this? It's likely due to temperature breaks and oceanographic features that act as an invisible boundary the sharks may wait to cross, said OCEARCH Chief Scientist and Veterinarian Dr. Harley Newton and OCEARCH Data Scientist John Tyminski. 

Upwelling in the ocean, a process in which winds blowing across the ocean push surface water away, bringing deep, colder water to the surface, creates rich food sources for the sharks in the region, Newton and Tyminski said.

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The scientists said other migratory shark species have been noted to use Cape Hatteras as a hangout during their seasonal movements, including dusky sharks, blacktop and spinner sharks, tiger sharks and hammerhead sharks. 

"It would make sense that these same drivers affect shark species, as well as other migratory fish species (e.g. tunas, billfishes) and various marine mammals, but I don’t see anything quickly that highlights this behavior in other species," Newton and Tyminski said. 

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Newton and Tyminski said there isn't enough data yet to create statistics on how many animals like Ripple take a pause around Hatteras, and how much it varies when they do make the stop. 

But, they said finer scale pattern analysis of these migration habits is something they can look at in the future with more data.

You can track Ripple and 400 other ocean animals in real time using the free OCEARCH Global Shark Tracker app.