Whether or not shark attacks are a major problem in Australia, the Australian government has devoted an enormous amount of resources into trying to mitigate the risk of sharks near popular beaches, with little evidence that any of the methods used to date have been particularly effective.
However, after six months of trials, the latest idea (scheduled to be implemented this month) will see drones patrolling some Australian beaches.
They will use cameras and AI-backed image analysis software to spot lurking sharks much better than humans can.
Studies show that humans are not particularly good at identifying sharks based on aerial imagery, achieving only a 20-30% accuracy rate, whereas a ‘machine learning system’ does much better; once it has been ‘trained’ on ‘labelled’ aerial videos of sharks, whales, dolphins, surfers, swimmers, and boats, for example, the system is 90% accurate and can warn people that there is a shark in the vicinity.
That said, visual shark detection from the air only spots sharks near the surface — and only then when the weather is good.
The drones come from an Australian company called Westpac Little Ripper (
www.littleripper.com), which modifies several types of commercial drones for tasks like shark spotting as well as general life-saving operations, such as dropping beacons — and even life rafts.
The larger Little Ripper drones are petrol-powered and can fly for several hours.