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7-foot-5 shark, Pico, stops by the Outer Banks

Pico journeyed from Texas to all the way up the east coast over the past year.
Credit: OCEARCH
Pico the mako shark

A huge shark has made his way to the North Carolina coast more than a year after being spotted in the Gulf Coast.

Pico, a 7-foot-5 adult male mako shark, was first pinged by OCEARCH off the Texas coast in March 2018. Wednesday morning, he was pinged near the Outer Banks.

OCEARCH, an organization that collects data on ocean life, says 'Pico was tagged by scientists with the Harte Research Institute’s Center for Sportfish Science and Conservation at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. “Pico” was named by Patrick Carson.'

In February, the Nakawe Project Facebook page posted that Pico has been quite the explorer over the past year, swimming more than 9,000 miles. Pico started off the gulf coast and went all the way up to New York and back again!

'Pico is an adult male shortfin Mako, about 7ft 5in that was tagged in March 2018 in the Gulf of Mexico near Texas. Since then, Pico has travelled all the way up to Long Island NY, following the east coast of America, only to then swim all the way back down again. He was last tracked on January 29th 2019 just northwest of Cuba. That's a whopping 9,910 miles travelled!! Thanks OCEARCH for tracking him - what an epic journey!'

Pico's travel log on OCEARCH says he's traveled 14,467 miles over 103 days.

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