On summer mornings, young Californians love to gather at Padaro Beach to learn to surf in the gentle waves, only the area has also been frequented by great white sharks for several years.
That led to the launch of SharkEye, an initiative started by the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory (BOSL), which uses drones to monitor what’s going on beneath the waves.
If a shark is spotted, SharkEye sends a message to about 80 people who have signed up for alerts, including local lifeguards, surf shop owners and parents of kids taking surf lessons.
The activity requires a pilot to stay focused on a screen and spot choppy water for sharks, seals and other life or small craft.
One study found that human-monitored drones detect sharks about 60 percent of the time.
SharkEye—part research program, part community safety tool—uses video taken by pilots to analyze shark behavior. It also feeds the footage into a computer vision machine learning model – a type of artificial intelligence (AI) technology that allows computers to glean information from images and videos – to train it to spot great white sharks near Padaro Beach, nearly by the city of Santa Barbara.
“Automating shark detection can be very useful for a lot of communities outside of us here in CaliforniaNeil Nathan, a project scientist at BOSL who graduated from Stanford University with a master’s degree in environmental studies a few years ago, told CNN.
Even though warming ocean temperatures are pushing sharks into new habitats, white shark attacks are rare. In 2023, globally, 69 people were attacked, which is in line with the average of 63 incidents recorded annually between 2018 and 2022. Only 10 people attacked died, according to a statistic from the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Although there has not been a fatal attack on Padaro Beach, some members of the community were concerned when sharks began to make their presence felt more often in the area.
For five years, since SharkEye has been conducting regular drone flights to monitor the coast, 15 great white sharks have been spotted in a single day.
Early tests indicate that the AI technology already works “incredibly well”, detecting most sharks that the human eye misses.
AI and wildlife
Artificial intelligence technologies are being harnessed in countless ways to mitigate human-wildlife conflict. In India, AI cameras alert villagers when tigers approach their homes, and in Australia, the technology is used to keep people away from other dangerous creatures.
Ripper Corp and its researchers pioneered the use of the world’s first shark identification algorithms, which were used by drones several years ago. The latest version of the software is being tested in the Australian state of Queensland, Mexico and the Caribbean to detect sharks and crocodiles.
However, artificial intelligence is not yet widely used for shark detection. Surf Life Saving New South Wales, which protects dozens of beaches along Australian coasts, including Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach, uses drones at 50 locations.
