News
New shark detecting buoy alerts lifeguards via smartphone – watch video
Researchers in Australia have developed a device that can detect a nearby shark in the water and alert lifeguards to its presence.
Australian tech company Shark Mitigation Systems has teamed up with communications firm Optus and together they’ve come up with the Clever Buoy – a buoy anchored to a box on the sea floor that emits sonar signals into the surrounding water to detect incoming sharks.
A processor inside the buoy analyses the reflections picked up by the sonar signals and can figure out if they came from a shark-sized object nearby. The buoy is so clever that it can tell a signal from a shark apart from that of a dolphin or a seal.
Clever Buoy has been tested at the Sydney Aquarium and off the coast of the Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia and have identified nearby sharks successfully. Once it’s been perfected, it’s hoped a number of these buoys will be lined up offshore at popular beaches in Australia. If any one of them pick up on a signal of something shark-sized moving in a shark-like manner, they’ll alert the local lifeguard by sending an update to their smartphone. Then it’s everyone out of the water until the shark signal has faded.
It’s hoped the technology will be available for deployment on Australia’s beaches midway through 2015.
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Over the next 12 months, specialist scuba holiday company Dive Worldwide will be supporting Bite-Back Shark & Marine Conservation with donations collected from client bookings to any one of its stunning dive destinations around the world. The independently-owned operator expects to raise £3000 for the UK charity.
Manager at Dive Worldwide, Phil North, said: “We’re especially excited to work with Bite-Back and support its intelligent, creative and results-driven campaigns to end the UK trade in shark products and prompt a change in attitudes to the ocean’s most maligned inhabitant.”
Bite-Back is running campaigns to hold the media to account on the way it reports shark news along with a brand new nationwide education programme. Last year the charity was credited for spearheading a UK ban on the import and export of shark fins.
Campaign director at Bite-Back, Graham Buckingham, said: “We’re enormously grateful to Dive Worldwide for choosing to support Bite-Back. The company’s commitment to conservation helps set it apart from other tour operators and we’re certain its clients admire and respect that policy. For us, the affiliation is huge and helps us look to the future with confidence we can deliver against key conservation programmes.”
To launch the fundraising initiative, Phil North presented Graham Buckingham with a cheque for £1,000.
Visit Dive Worldwide to discover its diverse range of international scuba adventures and visit Bite-Back to learn more about the charity’s campaigns.
MORE INFORMATION
Call Graham Buckingham on 07810 454 266 or email graham@bite-back.com
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