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[1] High above Sydney’s beaches, drones seek one of the world’s deadliest predators, scanning for the flick of a tail or the swish of a fin. Australia’s oceans are teeming with sharks, with great whites topping the list of species that might fatally chomp a human.
[2] More than 1,280 shark incidents have been recorded around Australia since 1791 – about 260 of them fatal – according to a national database. Though still relatively rare, fatal attacks do appear to be on the rise, with 56 reported deaths in the 25 years to 2025, compared with 27 deaths in the quarter-century prior.
[3] But how best to protect people from sharks is a sensitive topic in Australia. Drones have become a key resource, spotting more than 1,000 of the predators in the past year as they prowled New South Wales coastal waters. “We err on the side of caution,” Surf Life Saving New South Wales drone pilot Oliver Heys said. “If we see something, we drop down and zoom in to see if it is a dangerous shark or not. When we see them, a jet ski or inflatable rescue boat shepherds the shark back out to sea.” Pilots look for three species considered the most dangerous: great whites, tiger sharks and bull sharks. Of these, the great white has accounted for 42 per cent of shark attacks since 2000.
[4] While shark nets are rolled out each summer in New South Wales and Queensland, their use is hotly debated. Three local councils in New South Wales had planned to remove the nets from some beaches in a trial this year, but abandoned the move after a fatal attack in Sydney in September. Support for nets, which can be wider than a football field and up to six metres deep, has also broadly waned because sharks can swim around them and the mesh kills most of the marine life it ensnares.
[5] Nets are outdated and can act as a “dinner bell” when trapped carcasses attract predators, Leonardo Guida, a shark scientist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, told Agence France-Presse. Many scientists advocate more sophisticated techniques. In New South Wales, smart drumlines – anchored buoys with baited hooks – send an alert when a shark bites, allowing the animals to be tagged.
[6] A mobile app called Shark Smart then alerts swimmers, surfers, divers and fishers in real time when a tagged shark nears a listening buoy off their favourite beaches. But the technology only works if the aquatic hunter has been tagged or swims near a buoy that can detect it.
[7] Researchers say shark lives, too, need protecting. Globally, about 37 per cent of oceanic shark and ray species are listed as endangered or critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. And while sharks may make people nervous, official data shows drowning is a far bigger risk, killing 357 people in the 12 months before June this year.
Source: Agence France-Presse, October 29
