Getting attacked by a shark is one of the biggest fears people have about the ocean.
But a solution to this nightmare scenario could finally be on the way.
And scientists think they have stumbled upon one weird trick that could stop shark attacks.
Australian scientists are working on using light to prevent shark attacks
Florida is the shark attack capital of the world according to the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File.
Last year, Florida had 23% of all the unprovoked shark bites globally.
Getting attacked by a shark is exceedingly rare.
The odds are some in the range of one in three million, getting struck by lightning is more common.
But the possibility of getting bit could be ending because of the work of Australian scientists.
An amazing 42% of shark attacks have happened to surfers or people using a board in the water.
Researchers believe that sharks attack boards because they have poor eyesight and mistake their silhouettes for their typical prey like seals or sea lions.
Dr. Laura Ryan, a surfer and biologist at Australia’s Macquarie University, surmised that lights could scare off sharks.
She and her colleagues at the university conducted an experiment at Mossel Bay, South Africa which is a known hangout for great white sharks.
They created seal-shaped foam boards with various light strips on them and dragged them around the bay.
Boards had LED lights that ranged from bright to dim placed under them.
They also tested strobe lights.
Shark experiment yields surprising results
Ryan’s crew would drag one of the seal-shaped foam boards with the lights and another without to serve as a control in their experiment.
Sharks attacked or chased the board without lights more often than any of the ones with lights.
The brightest LED lights had zero encounters with sharks in the experiment.
Strobe lights were less effective than a steady stream of lights.
“So the thought process was, well, what happens if we change the silhouette? If we change the silhouette, will we change the white shark behavior around, you know, something that’s shaped like a seal?” Ryan told The Times. “So the best [illuminated] performing boards didn’t have any sharks interacting with them.”
She suspected the bright lights changed the shape of the silhouettes for the sharks.
“The main reason seems to be that we’re changing the shape of the silhouette so that sharks don’t recognize it as potential prey,” Ryan continued. “They seem to be looking for a dark object.”
Ryan’s team spent 500 hours in the shark-infested waters off South Africa testing her theory.
“Our results reveal the importance of a dark silhouette against a lighter background in predatory behavior in great white sharks and that altering the silhouette may form the basis of new non-invasive shark deterrent technology to protect human life,” the Australian researchers said.
Now, the researchers are going to develop a lighting system to test that can be installed on the bottom of surfboards, kayaks, and wet suits.
The lights were only evaluated on great white sharks, but they want to test the lights on other species known to attack humans like tiger sharks and bull sharks.
Tricking sharks with their bad eyesight could be the key to stopping them from attacking humans.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
