Shark Watch SA, in alliance with SA Above & Beyond, has conducted the Shark Watch team's first-ever affiliated drone shark surveillance operation for the Kooky Groms surfing competition in commemoration of Khai "Kooky" Cowley. The event, which was hosted at Middleton Point over the weekend of September 13 - 14, proved to be a successful safety and community outreach event with all participants enjoying a safe and action-packed weekend of surfing!
This was a major milestone for Shark Watch SA and local surfing communities that have been pleading for more to be done with shark safety in the state. The operation is an extension of our Recreational Community Shark Spotting commitment, launched back in April (see the "Current Projects" section of our website for more information). Since the project's conception, Shark Watch Founder, Anton, has enjoyed meeting several drone volunteers on the state's Fleurieu Peninsula and the Eyre Peninsula, coordinating recreational drone trials to help keep surfers shark safe with added aerial surveillance thanks to willing participants of the SA public who also see the need for added shark safety measures.
One of these drone users is Anthony from "SA Above & Beyond", who has proven to be the most reliable and professional drone enthusiast to join our team of volunteers, providing Shark Watch SA with high-quality drone technology and outstanding leadership, much to the admiration of the Shark Watch team and community onlookers. Thanks to Anthony's generosity and ongoing contribution, he has helped SWSA build important connections with South Australian surfing committees to provide their event days out on the coast with ample drone shark surveillance to help combat the state's absence of reliable shark bite deterrent measures. It's a step in the right direction, as drones are becoming more popular and easier to access on the market, allowing another window of opportunity to open for increasing the amount of tangible assets available at any one time to spot sharks among beachgoers in South Australia.
It's especially important to include the community with practical shark spotting ideation, as South Australian coastal and offshore waters are massively expansive and under-resourced. SWSA hopes that more SA recreational drone enthusiasts will be prompted to jump on board as we endeavour to grow our network of recreational drone volunteers around the state who can provide a timely and efficient response to locally observed shark activity and participate in requested event shark surveillance days.
"It's a "bitter-sweet" proposition to be receiving credit from the state government, who commend what we're doing as a combined community effort, but without any funding to back our projects, we can only go so far. Because the Shark Watch business model is something niche and left-field, we have to source alternative means of funding to coordinate the fulfillment of our vision to be the number one shark monitoring and bite mitigation/citizen science research project in the state. But I can be almost certain that we have enough traction and support to make it happen. Collaboration is a major part of the journey."
- Founding Director, Anton Covino.
If we can continue forging relationships with SA surfing, diving, and other coastal recreation committees that host regular events on local coastal waters, we can ensure that our voluntary drone services are being offered to the right demographic of people at the right locations without wasting some of the most advanced technology in the world for shark-spotting purposes. For example, if we know that a select location will host a surfing competition in the coming week, we can begin to centre our drone flights for that particular location to ensure the area is being monitored for localised shark activity in the days leading up to the event. This will, of course, be dependent on the size of the network of drone volunteers we're able to build over time. The minimum requirement to get involved with our project, if you have a drone, is a CASA accreditation that can be obtained via an online short questionnaire covering basic drone rules. It is also essential that you are safety-focused to ensure minimal disruption is incurred on surrounding people and the environment.
Frequent monitoring of coastal regions using drones also allows the opportunity for coastal communities to become more acquainted with local shark migratory behaviour and potentially identify individuals transitioning from one section of the coastline to another if the camera resolution available is high definition and has an ultra-clear zoom setting. A contributor photographically documenting their finds can then share the photos with Shark Watch, and from there, we can add the photographs and video footage to a photographic archive of identified individuals.
In the long run, this can help us make more informed decisions on how to minimise the risk of a shark interaction at different regions of South Australia's vast coastal expanse. Our three-year drone plan will soon be released as a part of our Recreational Community Drone Shark Spotting Project (see the "Current Projects" section of our website to learn more), detailing the end goal of this exciting vision. The more funding we're able to source, the more we can add to project outcomes in delivering an efficient and widespread drone shark surveillance operation for South Australia. We hope you will join us for the journey!
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