More than 300 sharks have been outfitted with acoustic transmitters that will tweet when they are within a half-mile of a beach. Government researchers in Western Australia developed the idea in hopes of removing the country from atop the fatal shark attack list—a spot Australia has held since 2011.
The new Twitter alert system promises to be faster than any of the previous methods. Once a shark has crossed the half-mile threshold, a tweet will appear on (Surf Life Saving Western Australia) with the approximate location, size, and breed of the shark, reports .
“It can, in fact, provide a false sense of security—that is, if there is no tweet, then there is no danger — and that simply is not a reasonable interpretation,” Kim Holland, a University of Hawaii marine biologist, told NPR. Holland also explains the other point of view that if there is in fact a shark, the animal isn’t necessarily dangerous either.
Although the newest shark-tweeting technology has yet to be proven effective, it certainly provides surfers and beachgoers with more information. It will also allow scientists to track the sharks and their behavoir.
Hopefully the sharks aren’t too sensitive about retweets.