A great white shark was tagged off the coast of Rhode Island for the first time

For the first time, an acoustic tag was placed on a great white shark in the waters off Rhode Island on Saturday.

In a Facebook post Sunday, The Atlantic Shark Institute announced its crew tagged a 7-foot-long, “healthy, juvenile, female white shark” inside the Harbor of Refuge in Point Judith.

“The tag will last 10 years and will provide invaluable data on this young shark as we follow her travels along the eastern seaboard,” the post says. “A small number of white sharks have been tagged and even fewer have been juvenile white sharks, making this research critical to their long-term health.”

WPRI reports acoustic receivers will mark the date and time when the shark comes within 500 to 800 yards of one, according to the institute.

Fewer than 300 great white sharks have been tagged in the northwest Atlantic Ocean with the technology, most of them adult and sub-adult sharks, the news station reports. The first juvenile white shark tagged in this particular study was found last August near Montauk, New York.

“This is a watershed moment for the Atlantic Shark Institute, this critical research, and our efforts to learn more and more about this iconic species,” said Jon Dodd, executive director of the institute, according to WPRI. “We’ve known for quite some time that white sharks visit our waters more often than has been previously documented, and this is simply another step in filling in those missing pieces.”

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