Australian surfers will soon be able to know the exact location of sharks through live tweets, the Wire reported.
At least 230 sharks have been equipped with transmitters by scientists in Western Australia. The technological device brings us one step closer to defeating sharks as the transmitter will update a Twitter feed when the shark comes near the shore.
According to Sky News, when a shark comes roughly within one kilometer (.6 mile) to shore, the transmitter triggers an alert picked up by a computer. The message is then converted into a tweet informing the surfer about the shark's size, breed and approximate location.
The tweets are sent out by Surf Life Saving WA's feed, and look something like this:
Western Australia is considered one of the deadliest regions for shark attacks as six people have been killed in the area the past two years, the Wire reported. The rise in fatalities encouraged the Australian government to test out new ways to protect surfers.
"You might not have got some of that information until the following day in which case the hazard has long gone and the information might not be relevant...Now it's instant information and really people don't have an excuse to say we're not getting the information, it's about whether you are searching for it and finding it," a representative from SLSWA told Sky News.
The Twitter solution comes at a time when the Australian government's only option was killing large sharks in close proximity to humans, Sky News reported.
"Ministers have just agreed to a controversial scheme allowing professional fishermen to kill sharks larger than three meters found in certain zones which are used by surfers and beach goers," State Premier Colin Barnett recently told reporters. "The safety of human life, the safety of beach goers using our marine environment must come first."
Environmentalists have been upset with the shark-culling project. A representative from Western Australians for Shark Conservation called the decision "a simple knee-jerk reaction, based on zero science."
