Sonar equipment to be positioned off Port Stephens in ‘nursery for juvenile great whites’ will be able to send information to lifesavers via SMS messages

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A new shark detection technology named “clever buoy” will be trialled off the coast of Port Stephens, 200km north of Sydney, in the hope it will give insight into the spate of recent attacks on the New South Wales north coast.

The collaboration with Australian company Shark Mitigation Systems will use sonar technology to detect the distinctive movement patterns made by sharks and transmit the information to local beach authorities via SMS messages.

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The primary industries minister, Niall Blair, said the government will partner with the University of Technology, Sydney, on a research project that will position a “clever buoy” about 1km off the coast of Hawks Nest at Port Stephens.

Video cameras will be dropped into the waters for a four-week period and the images obtained will be compared to the data received from the buoy to see how effective its sonar beam is at detecting white sharks. The cameras will confirm if the objects detected are big fish or sharks.

“It is recognised as a nursery for juvenile great white sharks, and aerial surveys have confirmed it is a congregation site,” Professor William Gladstone, who designed the trial, told Fairfax media.

“If it works effectively and reliably you could deploy a number of them to cover the beach entrance with sonar beam. The message would go back to the lifeguards if a shark enters, and they would decide what do to,” Gladstone said.

There have been six shark attacks in less than two years in the New South Wales near the north coast town of Ballina.