What Actions Can Seaside Jurisdictions Take to Ward Off Shark Attacks?

The sharks are juveniles, about five or six feet long. They’ve been gathering just beyond where the waves turn to breakers and roll toward Surfside Beach, a narrow strip of tan-colored sand located less than 10 miles southeast of Long Beach, California.

The Marine Safety and Lifeguards Department in the city of Seal Beach is responsible for safety at Surfside, which stretches for about three quarters of a mile and separates the Pacific Ocean from the gated community of Surfside Colony.

For about three months now, the department has used a new tool to monitor the young great white sharks that have been swimming offshore. It’s a DJI Phantom 3 Professional quadcopter. A drone.

“Every time we’ve flown it we’ve seen sharks,” the department’s chief, Joe Bailey, said during an interview on Tuesday. “It’s been that kind of summer.” Prior to this year, Bailey explained, there’s never been a confirmed great white shark sighting at Surfside, or in the waters off of any other part of Seal Beach. “The experts originally thought they’d be here for two or three weeks, now that thinking has changed.”

Drones are just one way local officials have responded to out of the ordinary shark activity in parts of the U.S. this year.

In addition to the unusual white shark sightings near Surfside Beach, on the other side of the country, in North Carolina, there’s been a spate of eight shark attacks since the beginning of June, a record for the state. The most recent one happened over July Fourth weekend. The incidents have prompted new fishing restrictions in some towns along the Tar Heel State’s barrier islands.

But, ultimately, governments have somewhat limited options when it comes to preventing encounters between sharks and humans. And while the attacks can have tragic results, researchers that study them stress that the incidents are extremely rare. They also note that as with any other type of wilderness environment, the ocean has inherent risks.

“There’s an over-emphasis on how often it happens and the consequence,” said George H. Burgess, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s Program for Shark Research and curator of its International Shark Attack File, which bills itself as the world’s most comprehensive database on the incidents. “Last year, hundreds of millions of people went into the water, and only three people didn't walk out as a result of meeting a shark,” Burgess added, referring to the total number of unprovoked shark attack deaths globally in 2014.

So far this year there have been 26 shark attacks in the U.S., with 11 of them in Florida, he said. In 2014 the total was 52.

“All things considered,” Burgess said, “it looks like it’s going to be a fairly average year.” But he acknowledged: “Nobody wants to have an attack on their beach. Nobody wants to be bitten.”

Chumming Bans and Other Precautions

Not wanting an attack is the reason that Pine Knoll Shores put new fishing restrictions in place.

The town is located on Bogue Banks, a roughly 24-mile barrier island on North Carolina’s Atlantic coast. Shark attacks occurred during June and July in North Carolina both south and north of the town, in places such as Surf City and Ocracoke Island.

While not entirely understood, the sharp rise in attacks in the state has been chalked up to a combination of factors, such as warmer-than-normal weather, high salinity levels in the water, which favor sharks, and robust populations of sea turtles and a fish called menhaden, which sharks eat. The culprits in the worst incidents were probably bull sharks, or possibly tiger sharks, according to Burgess. Black tip sharks, or spinner sharks, he said, could have been behind the less severe attacks. 

Fishing in the surf for red drum, flounder and bluefish, as well as sharks, is common on Pine Knoll Shores’ beaches, and some anglers are unhappy about the town’s new rules.

“We're getting a lot of flack over it,” Town Manager Brian Kramer said of the new guidelines during an interview on Tuesday. “I’m off a lot of Christmas card lists.”

The restrictions designate “swim only” areas at nine beach access locations. These areas are about 50 to 70 yards wide and are off-limits for fishing between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

“They’re fairly small areas, and hopefully won’t be too disruptive to the fisherman,” Kramer said. “We thought that was a reasonable step.” He pointed out that the new rules affect only about 8 percent of the town’s 4 1/2 miles of beaches, and that the plan is to lift the restrictions when the summer tourist season ends, and fall fishing “heats up.”

A July 9 email he sent to community members to explain the new precautions said: “The intent here is pretty clear: keep swimmers away from bait in the water.”

The nearby town of Emerald Isle has also adopted new rules following the recent attacks.

On July 6, the Board of Commissioners banned shark fishing activities until Sept. 15, including “chumming,” which can involve putting ground up fish into the water to attract the animals.

When it comes to other shark-safety measures in the town, it’s pretty much business as usual.

“We’re really not doing anything out of the ordinary,” fire chief Bill Walker said on Monday.

The town’s lifeguards, he said, patrol the local beaches on ATVs and “if they see a shark, then they’ll get the people out of the water.”

After North Carolina's seventh attack in early July, Gov. Pat McCrory said he would discuss the issue with his public safety secretary. But so far the state has not taken any major action.

“At this point, statewide, we haven’t really done anything, other than kind of put the word out to use good judgment,” said Patricia Smith, public information officer for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. “Sharks are in the water, and swimmers are in the water, and sometimes this happens,” she said of the attacks.

Looking for Dark Spots

Bailey, in Seal Beach, said that his department is working toward getting an authorization certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate its shark-spotting drone.

Pilots currently don’t fly the quadcopter higher than 200 feet in the air and conduct their surveillance early in the morning when the beach tends to be less busy and less windy. “We keep it nice and low and when we see a dark spot, we’ll lower down on that spot and film it so we can look at the film and make sure it is in fact a great white shark,” he said. “It’s worked out really well for us.”

The unmanned aircraft’s battery allows it to fly for about 20 minutes at a time, but the flights usually last for about 15.

Before using the drone, the department would send out lifeguards on a jet ski or personal watercraft to patrol for sharks. But Bailey said this was a time-consuming process, taking about two hours. He also said the animals are easier to see from the air than they are from the water.

Seal Beach has a shark policy in place with different thresholds that dictate when an area should be closed. These are based on the size and aggressiveness of sharks, and if they bite anything manmade. So far this year, there have not been any beach closures.

“Currently the thresholds haven’t been met, so we have posted warning signs on the beach,” Bailey said. But, based on what he’s seen, “the guys that live over there, that usually surf right in front of their house, they’re surfing other places right now.”

More Drastic Measures

Is killing sharks an answer to preventing attacks? No, according to Francesco Ferretti.

A postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, Ferretti was the lead author on a recent study, which found that the chances of a shark attacking a person in the waters off the California coast have declined substantially in recent decades.

As for culling sharks, Ferretti said the practice has not been found to be effective when it comes to reducing the risk of the animals encountering humans. And it can be expensive.

“It’s a waste of money,” he explained. A shark culling program in Western Australia, Ferretti said, cost about $22 million.

“Most of the time when you go out and kill sharks, you kill the wrong shark,” he also said. “Most likely you’re affecting a really endangered population.”

Burgess, at the Florida Museum of Natural History, echoed that view.

“Shark populations are at or near all time lows as a result of overfishing by humans,” he said. “Any human that dies in a given year, we kill 10 million sharks,” Burgess added. “Sharks have a hell of a lot more to fear from us than we do from them.”

The study Ferretti worked on found that while the overall number of recorded shark attacks in California has gone up over the years, the individual risk of getting attacked by one of the animals has gone down by about 91 percent in the last six decades, when taking into consideration how many people are now spending time in the state’s waters. Also mentioned is that ocean-goers in the Golden State are 1,817 times more likely to drown than to die from a shark attack.

Still, Ferretti said that the study’s findings don’t mean that people should not take steps to stay safe when they head into the water to surf, scuba dive, or swim.

A brochure from North Carolina Sea Grant, an organization that backs research, education and outreach efforts related to the state’s coast, recommends a number of precautions people can take to protect themselves from sharks. Some of those tips include: staying in groups, keeping out of the water if you’re bleeding, and not wearing jewelry, or other shiny objects that can resemble fish scales.

Ferretti thinks that more research could also help.

“The more we know about their ecology, about their distribution, their behavior, the more we can provide useful information for people to make informed decisions,” he said.

What about underwater fences to keep sharks away from beaches?

Burgess said it’s not a great solution in many places. He noted the high cost of these types of barriers, and the fact that they tend to not work well in areas where there’s strong surf.

He also pointed out that sharks are hardly the riskiest aspect of beach-going. 

"Keep in mind, we average about one death per year in the United States,” Burgess said, referring to shark attack fatalities. He added: “Thousands of people are killed in their cars going to the beach.”