by Here’s what Californians might not know: When great white sharks come within 100 yards of certain state beaches, lifeguards get a text alert.
A Cal State Long Beach program developed this unique system about six years ago, and hundreds of young white sharks have since been tagged for monitoring.
But the program is in danger of being shut down after running out of state funding.
The Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach in 2018 received $3.75 million in state funding to establish the program, which tracks juvenile white sharks along the California coast. Researchers hoped the monitoring would increase beach safety and help the public better understand the sea creatures.
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The money enabled researchers to tag 300 young sharks – about 235 are being actively monitored – and send data about their whereabouts and habits to lifeguards at beaches stretching from Morro Bay to the Mexican border, which said Chris Lowe, professor of marine biology and director. of the Shark Lab.
The team first tracked the sharks using 120 underwater acoustic receivers placed about 100 yards from the beach. Divers would collect data from the receivers about once a month and send it to lifeguards. By that point, the information was usually out of date.
Over the years, the program has added tracking buoys, “which give lifeguards real-time data,” Lowe said. “So now, when a tagged shark swims by one of these buoys … it sends a text alert to the lifeguards. And then they can click on that text alert, it takes them to a website, and then they can learn about all that. Shark: How big is it, where has it been, what beaches has it visited, how long has it been on the beach?”
The technology serves less as an “early warning system” than as a scientific tool to help lifeguards “better manage beaches,” Lowe said.
The funding was meant to last five years for the research team, Lowe said, but he was able to extend the money for an additional year. The staff of 15, including paid students, operates on a budget of approximately $1 million per year.
Lowe said he has talked to state legislators about setting aside money to continue the program in the coming years. But the state’s poor budget outlook has stalled additional spending amid a projected shortfall of at least $38 billion.
The office of state Sen. Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) said she was aware that Cal State campuses are dealing with funding challenges and that the Shark Lab alert system also appears to have financial shortfalls.
Gonzalez’s office did not say whether the senator would push for funding for the lab in the state budget.
Assemblyman Josh Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) is also aware of the issue. His chief of staff, Guy Strahl, said the office submitted a budget request for the program last year but was unsuccessful in getting more money. Strahl said Lowe did not request another round of funds this year, and the program is not included in this year’s funding requests for the Cal State system or the Long Beach campus.
Without an infusion of $7 million to continue the program, scientific progress could grind to a halt, Lowe fears. He said the lab would need to find private or foundation funds to keep the program going until the state budget recovers.
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This tracking has been supported by drone research showing how often surfers and other fishermen share the water with sharks – often without incident. This helped to dispel the misconceptions that sharks are always dangerous and that beaches should be closed when they are nearby.
Lowe said the data collection process has saved coastal communities millions of dollars a year because beaches are staying open more often, even when lifeguards receive alerts about sharks in the water.
In addition, researchers are beginning to understand why sharks flock to certain beaches, and what their food supply says about the marine ecosystem in general.
“That information is valuable not only to lifeguards but to the public,” Lowe said. “Because they understand better what the sharks are doing out there and why they are not as endangered as we once thought.”
In the meantime, the research effort has become a major attraction and recruiting addition to prospective students who want to study marine biology at Cal State Long Beach.
New funding would help the team tag more sharks and upgrade transmitters, Lowe said, while continuing to educate the public about marine conservation and shark habits.
“When shark incidents happen, and they will continue to happen – shark bites will still happen – people will understand the rarity of those circumstances,” he said. “If we can’t run these types of programs in California, I don’t know where we could.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
