With 'Shark Week' Imminent, Look Forward to the Great-White-Warning SMS System

by Matthew Zuras on July 22, 2010 at 07:20 AM

Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws' saw its 35th anniversary last month, and your writer reignited an irrational, but very real, childhood galeophobia by re-watching the entire toothy franchise just before a July 4th trip to the beach. It didn't help matters that the original Jaws (yes, we know, fictional) attacks occurred around Independence Day on Amity Island, and that the real-life Coast Guard issued a warning about carcharodon on the Eastern seaboard just after a great white was caught off of Massachusetts earlier that week. Needless to say, your writer was wary of the water. Perhaps he would've felt better had the Long Island lifeguards come equipped with a shark-warning texting system.

And that's exactly what researchers at Western Australia's Department of Fisheries are trying to set up. Tagging sharks and other marine life is nothing new (as evidenced by Dr. Hooper and Quint's tag-and-barrel system), but the Australian tags come with 20 satellite-linked buoys and 50 sensors on the ocean floor that relay the whereabouts of 75 great whites to some kind of Jaws-watch HQ. In addition to providing behavioral information about these little-understood apex predators, the system can send lifeguards an emergency text when one of the voracious animals swims within a quarter mile or so of a coastal buoy.

While that is only a small comfort to your writer, the new tracking system could shed light on the curious behaviors of the great white. For example, in 1997, an orca attacked and killed a great white -- an exceptionally rare occurrence -- off of California's Farallon Islands. Almost immediately after the attack, the area's entire great white population vanished; one tagged shark among them dove over 1,600 feet down, and promptly swam to Hawaii.

This writer is of the opinion that we should respect and honor great whites, which don't especially like the taste of humans since they're not as fatty as seals (yet). They merely check us with "test bites" to figure out what that thing is floating amongst their aquatic buffet. That's why we should continue to monitor them from afar, encourage the death-seeking marine biologists to jump into their diving cages, and let the rest of us wade peacefully in knee-high water. As Dr. Hooper so elegantly said, "I'm not going to waste my time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch." We've embedded a fun video of sharks at play below to remind you of their ocean dominance. [From: PopSci]

Tags: australia, CoastGuard, GreatWhite, GreatWhiteShark, jaws, nature, science, sharks, sms, Texting, top

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MDodson342Jul 22nd 2010 6:40PM

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This is so interesting, but where are the pictures?

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David HoffmanJul 23rd 2010 7:28AM

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The picture shown at 0:15 - 0:20 is a fake, never happened. A great display of photoshop skills but like I said, never happened. Still, I will not go in the ocean for any reason because of my fear of sharks. Don't want to kill them, don't want to be killed by them.

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BonbonJul 23rd 2010 12:38PM

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It makes you wonder, if they use one photoshopped picture, how many others are they using? It's all scare tactics.

People should realize that you are much more likely to be struck by lightning that being bitten (not killed, bitten) by a shark. Or being attacked by a cougar/mountain lion/puma. Yet people go out into thunder storms and walk in the woods all the time with no fear at all.

You can thank Steven Spielberg for our unfounded fear of sharks.

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drew lampkin IIIJul 23rd 2010 8:20AM

Highly Ranked

Sharks kill a handful of people each year. Humans kill a hundrew thousand sharks each year. Japanese maim sharks to make fin soup. Who is the more dangerous species ?

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smileyone18Jul 23rd 2010 10:00AM

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More people die from vending machines falling on them than shark attacks. Fun Fact of the day :)

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Jusen KajJul 23rd 2010 10:29AM

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The Orca-Great White thing sounded like a territorial issue. Limited food sources, it wouldn't be all that odd for one species to get cranky with another for hunting on their turf.

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p2lfJul 23rd 2010 11:33AM

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how does one signup to receive such alerts?

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AngelaJul 23rd 2010 12:57PM

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I'm SO glad we're not paying for this. I just don't find comfort from knowing that of the 350 different species of sharks in the world, 75 of one type have been tagged and if one of those few sharks swims close to one or two of the sticks in the water in exactly the right places, the sticks can send an emergency text to a lifeguard. SHOULD lifeguards be receiving text messages while on duty? You can't read your phone AND watch for drowning people at the same time. Or can they do that in Australia?

What this basically comes down to is there is that the Australian government instituted a program for studying the habits of Great Whites, and they're trying to get the Australian people to fall for the old "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help you" ruse by throwing in the statement "will alert lifeguards to danger"! Yes, I DO know what I'm talking about, too! It's a way of life here!

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qweebs1Jul 23rd 2010 12:44PM

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I'm sorry, but when i'm IN the water where the shark already i don't usually have a texting device with me.

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J.E.B.Jul 23rd 2010 12:44PM

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I have to correct whomever wrote the paragraph leading up to the "fun" video. Sharks DO NOT play. Like Hooper said in the movie, "JAWS", sharks have only 3 functions. They swim, they eat, and they make litle sharks. They don't play.

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