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Removal of Tagged Shark Detection System

Mul­laloo Surf Life Sav­ing Club (SLSC) will soon remove the tagged shark detec­tion buoys located in front of the Club. The buoys and pub­lic alert sys­tem pro­vided over a kilo­me­tre of tagged shark detec­tion and auto­matic alarms along the main beach.

Despite exhaus­tive attempts to engage com­mer­cial spon­sors, gov­ern­ment from both sides of pol­i­tics and local gov­ern­ment, no finan­cial sup­port has been found to main­tain or expand the trial of the cur­rent sys­tem. The new State gov­ern­ment has indi­cated that it will con­tinue to fund Surf Life Sav­ing West­ern Aus­tralia (SLSWA) to main­tain its sup­port of the cur­rent shark mit­i­ga­tion ini­ti­ates.

The asso­ci­ated mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing between Mul­laloo SLSC and Curtin Uni­ver­sity (Cen­tre for Marine Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy) for research into acoustic detec­tion of tagged sharks will now focus on other oppor­tu­ni­ties to col­lab­o­rate.

Mul­laloo SLSC is obvi­ously dis­ap­pointed to have to decom­mis­sion this inno­v­a­tive appli­ca­tion of tech­nol­ogy that enhanced the aware­ness and safety of beach goers at Mul­laloo. It has been the source of some insight­ful acoustic detec­tion stud­ies con­ducted over the last few years. Mul­laloo SLSC’s research col­lab­o­ra­tion with Curtin Uni­ver­sity has been much appre­ci­ated.

The Mul­laloo SLSC would like to acknowl­edge and thank all who assisted and spon­sors that pro­vided equip­ment and asso­ci­ated ser­vices, includ­ing RPS MetO­cean Pty Ltd, Whit­fords Sea Res­cue and Thhink Wire­less Tech­nolo­gies Ltd.

There remain two Depart­ment of Fish­eries tagged shark detec­tion buoys located approx­i­mately 600 meters off the beach at Mul­laloo. Any detec­tion from these units goes directly to SLSWA twit­ter feed, based on satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions. There will be no instant siren and red light alert at Mul­laloo SLSC attached to this sys­tem of tagged shark detec­tion.

shark bouyMul­laloo SLSC remains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing beach goers with the high­est stan­dard of surf life sav­ing ser­vice. We rec­om­mend swim­mers and other ocean users check for shark detec­tion alerts before enter­ing the water and remain vig­i­lant when assess­ing water con­di­tions.

Any enquiries can be emailed to info@mullaloosurf.com.au or call the office on 9307 7766.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 at 3:01 pm and is filed under News.

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