1,000-pound great white shark spotted again — this time near the MS Coast

Researchers tracked a massive great white shark swimming off the Mississippi Coast on Friday, just weeks after the animal surfaced near the shore in Alabama.

The 12-foot-long, 1,009-pound shark has been swimming south of Horn Island this week, according to OCEARCH, a nonprofit organization that tags and tracks sharks.

The shark, who researchers named Ernst, surfaced on Jan. 24 and again early Friday morning. Ernst traveled toward Mississippi after researchers tracked her just four miles off the Alabama coastline, near Dauphin Island, on Jan. 11.

Ernst arrived in the waters near Mississippi and Alabama after a long journey around the country’s coastline. She was tagged last October in Nova Scotia, swam down the Atlantic seaboard, rounded the Florida peninsula and reached the Gulf of Mexico in November.

Researchers said earlier this month that it was uncommon for a great white shark to swim close to shore, as Ernst did in Alabama. Great white sharks prefer water between 50 and 80 degrees, and young sharks often stay in warmer water close to shore. But Ernst was nearing adult age when researchers tagged her last October.

Ernst returned to deeper water this week, according to her tracker. Researchers capture her location when the tag on her dorsal fin breaches the water’s surface.

Researchers named Ernst in honor of a ferry called William G. Ernst, which has connected rural communities on two islands in Nova Scotia to the mainland for decades.

Her arrival near the Mississippi-Alabama coastline is the latest of several shark visits in recent years. OCEARCH tracked a huge, pregnant tiger shark named Hanna off the Mississippi Coast last September. A great white shark named Keji was also spotted south of the Mississippi Coast in 2024.