Canberra, Jan 20 (IANS) Scientists have called for acoustic technology to track white sharks off the coast of South Australia (SA) to prevent attacks on humans.
Four people have died in shark attacks at South Australian beaches since May 2023, including 28-year-old surfer Lance Appleby who was killed by a suspected great white shark earlier this month, reports Xinhua news agency.
The spate of attacks has prompted scientists to advocate for deploying acoustic technology at popular beaches across the SA coast to monitor tagged white sharks.
Over 200 white sharks have already been tagged in waters off the SA coast as part of a monitoring program for the diving industry.
The tags emit a unique sound pulse that is detected by underwater receivers, which in turn transmit the location data via satellite.
A small number of receivers have already been deployed along the coastline of Adelaide, SA’s capital, for research purposes, but shark expert Charlie Huveneers from Flinders University said that they could be used more widely to reduce the risk of shark attacks.
He said the real-time receivers could be used to notify the public and authorities when a shark is nearby.
“This information can be used by the public to be better informed about the risk of shark bites and to leave the water when a potentially dangerous shark is nearby,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Russ Bradford from national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) said the east coast state of New South Wales (NSW) spent approximately 20 million Australian dollars ($12.4 million) over the last 10 years tagging sharks and installing acoustic receivers.
He told ABC that a similar program in SA could be useful alerting water users to the presence of a shark.
According to the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, the state’s shark tagging program is estimated to be the largest in the world. In 2023, the 37 acoustic receivers along the NSW coast recorded 62,835 shark detections, 34,929 of which were great white sharks.
A spokesperson for the state government of SA told the ABC that expanding SA’s acoustic receiver program for the purpose of reducing the risk of shark bites would be inefficient and impractical due to the length of the state’s coastline.
–IANS
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