Sharks are really, really scary. Beautiful, yes. But scary. Really, really scary. But just because imagining what they COULD do if they so desired could make the toughest man alive whimper into his urine-soaked shorts doesn’t mean they should be slaughtered any time they accidentally swim near shore. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for human life. But I’m all for shark life, too. And we do, as a species, have a pretty bad track record of shooting first and asking questions second.
When Western Australia started out with their shark cull, the world sat up in outrage (which was odd, because culling sharks in Australia isn’t anything new at all). Aside from polarizing communities, the cull did shed some light on a lot of previously un-researched numbers, which, at least from a view point based purely on numbers–exposed a few minor flaws in the system… like the fact that it didn’t actually work. But it does make the ones that choose to ignore the numbers feel better, so that’s something. Sucks for the sharks, though.
But there’s a new product floating around out there that might replace shark nets (which kill a lot more than just sharks). It’s a buoy. A really high-tech buoy, full of gadgets and sonar and algorithms. It’s a very clever idea. It’s called the Clever Buoy, and it contains contains a sonar system within it that sends a signal skyward to a satellite when a large fish swims by. The satellite then shoots an alert down to nearby lifeguards. And although it might seem like an unnecessarily long journey, it makes a whole lot more sense than most of the other options out there, which pretty much include killing said large fish.
The Clever Buoy uses an algorithm that’s similar to the facial recognition on your camera, but it uses swimming technique instead of eyeball placement. Things like dolphins and turtles won’t set the buoy off, because of how they move through the water.
A company called Shark Attack Mitigation Systems developed the buoys, and the project is funded by Australia’s Optus Network. Shark Attack Mitigation Systems has had a hand in quite a few developments of note in recent years, including those odd looking wetsuit prints that make the wearer look like a neoprene zebra.
