American ocean swimmers, fisherman, surfers and ocean sports enthusiasts from coast-to-coast are well aware that it is now shark season. We Americans could learn a lot from the Australians. Electronically tagged sharks send SMS alerts when they are nearby beaches and populated areas which alert officials and lifeguards to close beaches.
If the U.S. had a similar shark tagging system, Fisherman and swimmers could check their mobile phones to see if it is safe to swim without sharks. There have incidents with sharks in South Carolina, Cape Cod, San Onofre, and other ocean areas. There seem to be even more especially after shark week.
There are monitoring stations designed to track movements of great sharks off the coast of Australia. Receivers track great white sharks that have been electronically tagged.
An increasing number of sharks are being tagged for the tracking system.
When a shark is near a monitoring station, a message is generated and sends an email to the Department database and then SMS text messages are sent to government and beach safety agencies. Agencies can then close beaches.
The majority of tagged sharks were from South Australia, although it is suspected that great whites will roam as far as Perth from Australia's central south coast.
If a similar system were instituted in the United States, it could also be used for scientific research.