LED lights under surfboards may prevent great white shark attacks: study - EFE Noticias

Nov 12, 2024

LED lighting on the underside of surfboards could prevent great white shark attacks, according to an Australian-led study, which tested the idea on foam seal decoys. EFE/HANDOUT/MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY

Sydney, Australia, Nov 12 (EFE).- LED lighting on the underside of surfboards could prevent great white shark attacks, according to an Australian-led study.

The lead author of the study, Dr Laura Ryan, together with her colleague Professor Nathan Hart said Tuesday in a statement from Sydney’s Macquarie University that their research “may form the basis of new non-invasive shark deterrent technology to protect human life.”

Previous research has revealed that although great white sharks are probably color blind, they compensate for this with their ability to detect silhouettes near the surface, and lunge upwards to capture it in their jaws, injuring or in some cases, killing humans by confusing them with seals.

Ryan and her colleagues from Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom looked at using LED lights to prevent such attacks in a study titled ‘Counterillumination reduces bites by Great White Sharks,’ which has been published in the scientific journal Current Biology.

As part of this research, the scientists towed 1.2-metre-long foam seal-shaped decoys attached to a boat via a 20m line.

This experiment was carried out in South Africa’s Mossel Bay, famous for the presence of great whites, where the researchers witnessed the decoys regularly attacked by the sharks.

The scientists used various configurations of LED lights on the underside of the decoy seals in order to break up their silhouettes into smaller shapes, a strategy inspired by some marine animals such as the juvenile plainfin midshipman fish, which have photospores on their underside that produce light and disrupt their shape.

After many configurations, the researchers discovered that the ideal pattern was stripes across the body of the decoys, perpendicular to the direction in which they were towed.

The sharks still saw the decoy, but its shape was broken up and the great whites stopped attacking, the statement said.

Now the scientists plan to test the LED lights on a prototype surfboard, analyze whether this lighting prevents attacks when the board is stationary, such as when waiting for a wave, and study whether it works on other species such as bull sharks and tiger sharks.

“We don’t know if it will be as effective on them because we’re not certain if they rely on visual cues as much as white sharks,” Ryan said.

The study could help prevent the average of 80 human deaths that occur each year due to shark attacks. EFE

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