The system, a world first, has been deployed off several popular metropolitan beaches in the area of Perth, from Ocean Reef to Garden and Rottnest Islands.
According to PerthNow, 18 seabed detectors now in place are capable of detecting any one of 74 great whites which have been tagged for the project.
When tagged sharks swim within range, the seabed detectors are able to send, via a satellite link, texts or emails to monitoring teams including life savers, scientists and wildlife officials.
The detectors have been arranged so that monitoring teams are alerted once a great white has moved to within 500m of the shoreline.
The shark tags have been attached either by shot or handheld harpoon. So far 74 great whites have been tagged, 67 of them in southern Australian waters and seven in Western Agustralia.
Under a $400,000 government-funded project, some 100 great whites will eventually be fitted with the tags.
The seabed detectors around Perth will be useful both for swimmer safety and for researchers keen to learn more about movements of great whites off shorelines.
It is almost certain that, in the past, the sharks have explored inshore not far from swimmers while remaining undetected, with no subsequent incidents with humans taking place.
“The use of the technology that delivers real-time notifications of tag detections hasn’t been used in an operational sense anywhere else in the world,” Dr Rory McAuley, the Department of Fisheries’ senior research scientist, told press.
“The information we are hoping to collect will hopefully provide us some answers to the questions we are always asking about how long white sharks spend off our beaches, whether they come back, is there a season, do they come back one year after the other.”
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