Researchers capture video of great white shark off Alabama coast

MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) - Researchers report a new great white shark sighting off the Alabama coast and pictures to back it up.

Video of the 8-foot juvenile shark called Miss Pawla was captured by researchers from the University of South Alabama who were monitoring fish movement near the Alabama’s artificial reef zone.

According to USA, Miss Pawla was first spotted with underwater cameras in mid-April during a survey in conjunction with researchers from Mississippi State University and Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. She was still roaming the same site 10 days later. But on Friday, May 3, she was gone, the scientists said.

Great white sharks can live more than 50 years, and based on her size, the shark in the video is somewhere around 15 years old, researchers estimated. They say she won’t reach maturity until she’s at least 30 years old.

Scientists say that great white sharks are becoming more common in the cooler waters off New England and California. White sharks have been reported from other areas of the Gulf of Mexico, usually in deeper, cooler waters.

It’s rare to find them off the Alabama coast, according to Dr. Sean Powers, director of USA’s Stokes School of Marine and Environmental Sciences.

Miss Pawla was spotted in approximately 150 feet of water where the reef was located and is the first known sighting in that area recorded by scientists. Recent reports of a white shark seen by divers in coastal Alabama, including one caught by fishermen and another washed up dead on a Florida Panhandle beach, suggest that the species may be more common in the northern Gulf of Mexico than originally thought, researchers say.

“We have surveyed over 1,000 artificial and natural reef areas over the last 10 years, providing scientific data to assist the State of Alabama in managing its offshore fisheries,” said Powers. “This is our first documented sighting of a white shark.”

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