GPS Tagged Great White Shark Appears in Northern Gulf Of Mexico Katherine tagged off Cape Cod and being released back into Atlantic Ocean. Photo courtesy of Ocearch.org.            A 14-foot, nearly 2,500 lbs, great white shark has made an appearance in the northern Gulf of Mexico, 100 miles south of Panama City, Florida and has gone viral on social media. The Great White Shark Katharine, who was tagged off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was named by Cat Products fans in honor of Katharine Lee Bates, a Cape Cod native and songwriter - best known for her poem and song "America The Beautiful". She was tagged and released last fall by a group of researchers working with Ocearch.      OCEARCH is a non-profit organization with a global reach for unprecedented research on great white sharks and other large apex predators. In a collaborative environment established by Founding Chairman and Expedition Leader Chris Fischer, OCEARCH enables leading researchers and institutions to generate previously unattainable data on the movement, biology and health of sharks to protect their future while enhancing public safety and education. The advancement of technology has allowed scientists to place long term GPS tracking devices on the dorsal fins of the sharks. Not only do the sharks get tracked, but scientist gather blood samples, check tissue and the health of the shark in the 15 minutes while the shark is out of the water. Extreme care and safety it taken when the shark is bought up out of the water onto a ramp alongside of large vessel so not to harm or kill the shark.         After being tagged in Cape Cod on August 19, 2013, the young Katharine slowly made her way south down the Eastern seaboard coming as close as 12 miles off the Northeast Florida shoreline in about 4-6 months. News reports indicated she had her eyes set on Texas, but Ocearch’s founder told ABC News he doesn't think that’s going to happen. Ocearch’s founder says that if she doesn’t return to Cape Cod this summer, it might mean she’s pregnant. It's appear from Katharine's track, she's feeding on game and reef fish around the Florida Keys and likely just off of Port St. Joe, where she's been circling for a few a days, roughly 100 miles southwest of Port St. Joe.       Chris Fischer of Ocearch has taken the shark tracking to social media, and its been a huge hit. The last week of June, the web site Ocearch.org took roughly 5 million hits a day and on Facebook, nearly 40 million in one week. Katharine is on Twitter (of course). Her handle is Shark_Katharine. On Twitter, one person noted her notoriety, saying Katharine is like the underwater Kim Kardashian.       What I found great about the twitter is the interaction between the people. The hash tag #ReplaceFearwithfacts has been a huge success and for two days around the beginning of July, was a leading item on twitter. Not sure who actually runs the twitter pages, but they are affiliated with the research group and give some clever response to people who tweet to that shark, in this case Katharine. I encourage you to head over to twitter and ask a question and see what kind of reply you can get.           Track Katharine at Ocearch.org with near real time updates on her location. Become her Facebook fan at Facebook.com/OCEARCH. Twitter interaction can be found at @Shark_Katharine (Katharine The Shark). She also has a blog, They Call Me Kat - Misunderstood girl just tryin' to get some fish.  Brandon S.