Egypt has found a way to save the tourism industry from sharks: expensive equipment has been purchased

Saving their tourism industry after the tragedy with a Russian tourist torn to pieces by a shark in Hurghada, the Egyptian authorities went bankrupt on the world’s most expensive anti-shark equipment – satellite tracking. This is discussed not without envy even by the richer neighbors of the Land of the Pyramids in the region, who do not yet have such equipment.

We found out how this device will work and how it can protect vacationers in Egyptian resorts.

According to the Nature Conservation Sector of the Egyptian Ministry of the Environment, they have purchased 50 devices for satellite tracking of shark movements for $10,000 each, they have been tested, tuned, and now it is up to them to catch all man-eating sharks and implant them with a chip with a sensor. Mohammed Salema, head of the conservation sector, clarifies that only the most dangerous individuals are planned to be microchipped, and these are female mako, tiger and long-winged oceanic sharks (despite the fact that more than 50 species of sharks live in the Red Sea). Egyptian officials assure that predators will not suffer from chipping, and bathers will be protected. At the same time, the Ministry of the Environment officially recognized for the first time that there are “species of shark fish that regularly sail to the beaches of Egyptian resorts and attack people,” and now, thanks to a study initiated by officials, it has become clear which species these are. Expensive chips are waiting for them, and they will be caught first off the coast of Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh and Marsa Alam.

– Isn’t it fantasy? – I appeal to the domestic oceanologist Ksenia Dotsenko. – How can you prevent a shark from attacking a beachgoer, even if, say, a sensor is implanted into it? It is known that sharks easily travel thousands of kilometers, today it is in the Red Sea, and tomorrow in the ocean. Or should someone be on duty around the clock like an air traffic controller, monitoring the movements of all the sharks?

– Tracking the migration of fish with the help of a satellite is not a fantasy. So scientists have long been monitoring the migration and behavior of expensive and rare fish species such as salmon, tuna, blue whales, blue and white sharks. Another question is that this was done solely for scientific purposes. And the fishermen who caught the fish with the sensor know where to take it.

– And what, honestly?

– Yes, for this they are paid a good amount for each sensor, if they bring it along with the catch.

According to scientists, when observing a shark with a satellite for scientific purposes, it is followed for several years, establishing its usual migration areas, favorite places for mating games, hunting, recreation and reproduction. The movements of such a shark can be predicted, but only after about a year of studying its habits. But until you study everyone, how many troubles can bathers get?!

– Not everything is so hopeless, – Ksenia Dotsenko consoles. – Some individuals never come to shallow water, in general there are a lot of developments on sharks, if you set out to study and predict their behavior and appearance in individual areas, then this is a very real task. Even though it’s budget-friendly. In California, such studies have been going on since the late 90s.

It turns out that a team of Californian ichthyologists at Stanford University has been monitoring sharks with devices similar to those bought by the Egyptians for 15 years. Since then, the technologies available to scientists have become more modern.

“At first, acoustic ones, like a radio transmitter, were considered the most expensive and advanced means,” says Kate Chernova, a Russian-speaking ichthyologist working overseas. – But the so-called radio tag was very difficult to install on an individual. In addition, only specially equipped buoys received signals from these sensors. Today, electronic chips are already in use, they are more expensive, but also more convenient. They are easy to implant into the dorsal fin, after which you can follow all the movements, well-being and even the mood of the chipped individual on the Internet, even through your smartphone. How, for example, the flight of an aircraft is monitored using an application such as radar.

Apparently, the Egyptian authorities intend to similarly register the 50 most dangerous individuals from their point of view and keep an eye on their mood. True, in California there are special floating platforms with equipment to receive signals from chipped marine life, and soon they promise waterfowl robots that will look after sponsored with chips without human intervention. That is, for example, a diver before diving will be able to check the water area for the presence of predators in his smartphone as simply as we look at the weather for the next few hours. This may be the case in the Red Sea, if, of course, floating monitoring stations are also installed there. But many doubt this, since before there were no such developments in the country. While in California, since the beginning of research – that is, over 15 years – about 300 sharks have been tagged with electronic sensors, 189 acoustic tags and 148 electronic tags have been delivered. Of these, 100 are still in the fins of predators, regularly broadcasting every minute of their life, and the rest are lost, since water is still the element of fish, not man, so not everything in the abyss is subject to our control.

Meanwhile, according to Turkish press reports, on June 16 near the Konyaalti beach in the province of Antalya, fishermen encountered an aggressive shark and filmed it. Today, many Turkish fishermen are afraid to go to the open sea. If this goes on, then the Turkish “cannibals” will have to be chipped.