Unmanned aircraft to takeover shark watch
Lisa Herbertson Southern Courier
UNMANNED drones could soon be seen in the skies above suburbs like Coogee, in an effort to keep the beaches safe from sharks during Sydney’s summer months.
Councillor Ted Seng’s motion at last week’s Randwick Council meeting, that Randwick Council investigate the feasibility of using unmanned drones to carry out shark patrols on the beaches, was carried.
“The last few years the cost of a drone has come right down and they’ve been doing some wonderful things with them,” he said.
“The cost of a drone itself is not much but the monitoring of it will be expensive and so that’s why I suggested approaching the other coastal councils and we could all share the cost. It’s more than just sharks though and it’s about what other uses we could have for drones, too.
“It’s just such a sophisticated technology and has been proven so successful in so many emergency situations.”
