Researchers 'ping' great white shark near Vancouver Island
Earlier this week, a great white shark "pinged" off the coast of Vancouver Island, researchers say.
The shark is a mature female that measures around five metres in length and weighs approximately 1,000 kilograms. She has been named Kara by researchers, who are thrilled to see her in northern waters.
Kara was one of six sharks fitted with a tracking device in October 2025 near Point Conception in California. The device "pings" when a shark is at the surface with its dorsal fin out of the water for several minutes, giving an approximate location.
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"I've been studying these white sharks for almost 30 years, and this is the first one that's gone this far north," said Michael Domeier, who is with the Marine Conservation Science Institute and is behind the program tracking Kara.
Domeier, who is based out of Hawaii, says the program was designed to help track female sharks to see where they are giving birth, studying the animals in California and Mexico.
While the ping is exciting, Domeier says that sharks in Canadian Pacific waters aren’t an anomaly, and that sharks have been recorded as far north as Alaska.
This photograph taken off the coast of Liverpool, N.S., in 2020 is one of the first underwater pictures taken by a diver of a great white shark in Canadian waters. (Submitted by Chris Harvey-Clark)
Meaghen McCord with the International Union for Conservation of Nature's shark specialist group agrees. While it may be the first recorded "ping" of a shark, she says it’s important to remember that there have been multiple occurrences of white sharks washing up in beaches as far north as Haida Gwaii as recently as a year and a half ago.
McCord explains that without more data it’s hard to tell if sharks heading north are a part of a positive shift in conservation or a symptom of a broader change happening in oceans.
While Kara’s researchers are focused more on where female sharks "pup," McCord says understanding sharks as a whole is important, especially in Canada.
"By understanding sharks, by diving deeper into their research, by knowing more about their movement and their ecology and their biology, we're really helping to understand the ecosystem as a whole," she said.
Kara certainly has caught the attention of many British Columbians and beyond. A Facebook page in Oregon has been posting updates of every new ping of Kara’s location.
Laura Briggs of Victoria is behind the Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island, a Facebook page she started to combat misinformation. She says she's worried Kara is being used to stoke fear.
Like Domeier and McCord, she says great white sightings in the region are rare but normal.
Briggs says any sighting of an endangered species should be celebrated, not a cause for concern.
Laura Briggs is behind the Field Naturalists of Vancouver Island Facebook group. She says that any sighting of an endangered animal is exciting and welcome, but misinformation and fearmongering are not. (Claire Palmer/CBC)
"We know they traverse these waters, we just don't often see them, so it's newsworthy in the fact that we have evidence of the shark being there. That's uncommon," she said.
"We actually have no clue how many white sharks are off the coast of B.C. There are no reliable estimates of their population."
Domeier says great whites are creatures of habit and it's likely that Kara has established a migratory route that she’s travelled for years, and she could "ping" in Canadian waters again, even if it may be in a few years time.
This article, written by Claire Palmer, was originally published for CBC News.