Mary Lee is Shadowing You!
If you northbound migrators are weary of inland sights, here’s something to look for offshore and she’s been following you all along your voyage! This story from the Washington Post is by Sarah Kaplan.
Meet Mary Lee, the East Coast’s friendly neighborhood great white shark
Mary Lee has all the trappings of celebrity status: a Twitter account with thousands of followers, fans who follow her every move, a heaping dose of media savvy. The fins, razor-sharp grin and taste for seal flesh are a bit more unusual, but every celebrity has her eccentricities.
Of course, Mary Lee is no Hollywood starlet. She’s a 16-foot, 3,456-pound great white shark. And she’s been lighting up social media this week as she makes her way along the Atlantic Coast.
After spending most of the year in the chilly, deep waters far off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, Mary Lee suddenly surfaced near Virginia’s Assateague Island early this week.
Since then she’s shot up north to Atlantic City, much to the delight ‘” or terror , as the case may be ‘” of New Jersey residents.
And this from WSMD.com:
Great white shark cruising East Coast becomes Twitter star
BY PHILIP MARCELO
Associated Press
BOSTON (AP) – They’re gonna need a bigger Twitter.
An organization studying great white sharks is enjoying some welcome attention after one of the creatures they’ve been monitoring started gaining a loyal social media following. @MaryLeeShark is the fake Twitter handle for a very real, nearly 3,500-pound great white whose movements can be tracked online and in real time.
She’s drawn over 44,000 followers with her playful updates and witty replies as the real life shark cruises up and down the East Coast.
Great white Mary Lee pinged near Eastern Shore today
Posted: Sunday, May 24, 2015 6:49 pm
By Rex Springston Richmond Times-Dispatch
Update: 12 p.m. May 24
The latest ping from the tracker on Mary Lee ‘” a 3,500-pound great white shark ‘” occurred at 10:29 a.m. today east of Hog Island on the Eastern Shore.
(This has been a news update. An earlier version of the story appears below.)
If you go take a dip off the Virginia coast this Memorial Day weekend, you could be swimming with a toothy, 3,400-pound buddy.
Mary Lee, a 16-foot great white shark and an Internet sensation, is touring the Atlantic coast ‘” sometimes close to shore.
The nonprofit research and education group OCEARCH caught Mary Lee off Cape Cod in 2012 and attached an electronic tracking tag to her dorsal fin. Researchers ‘” as well as legions of Mary Lee fans following her online ‘” have been tracking her ever since.
The shark recently passed the 20,000-mile mark on her travels up and down the coast. As of Wednesday evening, she was most recently recorded off Virginia’s Eastern Shore near Chincoteague on Tuesday afternoon.
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