Massachusetts

Lobsterman Catches, Releases 8-Foot Great White Shark

Talk about catch and release: A Massachusetts lobsterman hooked a great white shark and played it for a while before letting it go.

The local blog GoodMorningGloucester.com said Gil Mitchell snagged the 8-foot-long juvenile male on Tuesday near Rockport.

Mitchell released the shark after noticing it had been tagged with a transponder by biologists tracking the movements of the fearsome predators.

Experts with OCEARCH, a nonprofit wildlife group, have nicknamed the shark Cisco based on the popular Nantucket brewery of the same name.

A day before the Rockport catch, state officials working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy tagged a 13-foot white shark near Chatham.

Great whites increasingly have been spotted in Massachusetts coastal waters. Experts say they're drawn by a rebounding seal population.

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