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Chessie the shark takes a swim off the Virginia coast

WASHINGTON — Maybe she waved hello with her dorsal fin. The biggest tiger shark ever tagged on the East Coast just made an appearance off the coast of Virginia. Chessie, who is more than 12 feet long and around 1,200 pounds, was tagged last month off Hilton Head Island, South Carolina and was named for that state’s Chechessee River. A ping from her tracking device shows Chessie was swimming off the coast of Virginia Beach Thursday morning.

The nonprofit group OCEARCH tracks hundreds of tagged sharks worldwide, and posts their locations online. Already, a Twitter account set up for Chessie has almost 16,000 followers. But a Great White shark named Mary Lee has Chessie soundly beaten, with 77,000 followers. Shark enthusiasts, take note — Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week starts July 5.

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