Australia Working On High-Tech Shark-Detection Systems (itworld.com)

jfruh writes: Even if you're a frequent ocean swimmer, you're much more likely to die in a car accident than from a shark attack — and yet sharks strike fear into people's hearts in ways that directly affect the economies of surf paradises like Australia. That's why the Australian government is working on a host of techologies to detect shark incursions on popular beaches, including drones and smart buoys (PDF) that can identify potential predators (PDF).

Comments

Seems unlikely to be effective

[swillden]

The reason that shark attacks are rare isn't that sharks are rare, it's that they rarely attack people. So any properly-functioning shark detector is going to be sounding the alarm multiple times per day, at least. That's not going to make people feel safer about getting into the water.

In an ideal world the solution would be education. If people understand statistics they'll realize that they should be far more afraid of the drive to the beach or of drowning while swimming or surfing than of being attacked by a shark. The risks are orders of magnitude higher... and it's not like many far more common forms of death aren't equally gruesome and painful. They just aren't as newsworthy and our cavemen brains are wired to judge probability by the frequency with which we hear a story, and how spectacular it is.