Earlier this month, a 33 year old man died from bite wounds following a shark attack in the water of Cid Harbour on Whitsunday Island, off the coast of Central Queensland, Australia. The man was swimming in Cid Harbour’s waters when he was fatally attacked by a shark. Two other swimmers were attached on Whitsunday Island in September. According to the Australian Shark Attack File, there have been a total of 15 shark attacks across the country this year, with 7 of them in New South Wales. The state government has taken unprecedented measures to effectively protect swimmers against attacks. One such measure is to utilize drone technology.  The largest shark-detecting drone fleet in the state’s history, alongside shark listening stations, will be deployed this summer in order to prevent fatal attacks at beaches along the coastline.

More than $16 million has been spent on shark deterrents such as drones, which will be paramount to this summer’s defenses against tiger sharks, bull sharks, and great whites. Dr. Raoult emphasizes that drones provide both lifesavers and researchers with significantly real-time information about just how close sharks really are to swimmers. In addition to offering accurate data, drones are a much cheaper alternative to helicopters. Earlier in November, Dr. Raoult published the open access article ” Drone-Based High Resolution Tracking of Aquatic Vertebrates”, belonging to the special issue Drones for Coastal Environments. In this article, the marine ecologist suggests that the drone approach is superior to other methods tracking the movement patterns of sharks.

More specifically, this approach allows the behaviors and movements of different shark species to be assessed at resolutions not previously possible without expensive cameras. Drone tracking is low cost when compared to other methods such GPS tagging. With the aid of drones, Dr. Raoult and his team tracked 14 sharks in a lagoon of Heron Island. Results show that Epaulette sharks are more mobile during daytime low tides than previously believed. The conclusion of Dr. Raoult’s research is that drones would be useful to assess sharks’ behaviors in shallow waters, where they are most likely to attack swimmers.