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Western Australian Sharks Send Tweets To Swimmers
Zothecula writes "More shark attacks occur in Western Australia than almost anyplace else on Earth. In order to help protect swimmers and surfers, the state government relies largely on helicopter-based spotters, plus members of the public who report their own sightings. Now, however, the Department of Fisheries has introduced a new system, in which the toothy fishes announce their own presence via Twitter. Known as the Shark Monitoring Network, the system utilizes acoustic tags that are attached to the fins of individual sharks, along with buoyed monitoring devices that pick up the signals transmitted by those tags. When a tagged shark swims within range of one of the monitors, its species, size and location is automatically recorded."
It's unfortunate more people died. Sadly, sharks will be sharks. The system in the OP might sound stupid but so is the response from the Western Australian government. The current strategy is a cull of sharks off the coast (which will go ahead on Jan 10 and April 30).
Both systems are obviously flawed in that only random sharks are tagged/killed. The articles system however can be just as effective (beaches can be closed, people can be warned) without the need to further kill off a protected species. I imagine that the statistics from tracked sharks could be useful in research as well.
It would be nice if they offered a small bounty to fishermen who tag and release as part of the 'shark mitigation' (monitor and cull) package they just announced.