DRONE OF THE WEEK: SHARK SPOTTER
by Hazed
Here’s a new use for drones: spotting sharks off the coast of California.
Lifeguards in Seal Beach used a drone to keep an eye out for sharks, and spotted 10-12 right off the coast. However, the creatures weren’t proving to be a problem for swimmers so they decided not to close the beach.
Joe Bailey is the Chief Lifeguard and he explained that he’s been flying the drone for a month now. “It works great,” he said. “It flies up about 100 feet, looks down a wide area, and when we see the shadows, we’ll go down and focus in on them.”
“If we get bigger sharks or we get sharks that are aggressive, we’re actually going to close the water. But right now, we have sharks that are 5- to 6-feet long, non-aggressive, acting like normal sharks, feeding on bottom fish, doing exactly what we would expect them to do,” he said. “That’s why we have it posted just to let people know that they are there.”
What an excellent use of new technology. You can see a video of the shark-spotting drone in action here.
