Last year, Liquid Robotics has created a solar-powered robot named Wave Glider to track white shake in the Pacific Ocean. This is part of a project led by a group of marine scientists from Stanford University as an effort to figure out which factors attribute to the decline population of great white shake near the California coast recently. Awarded $22 million in Series D financing, the Wave Glider is considered one of "an arsenal of ocean-observing technologies" according to the team.
The Wave Glider's main task is to observe the Californian coast, collect and send data from any acoustic-tagged creatures to a research team. Anyone using iPhone or iPad with a "Shark Net" app can track the animals in this area, which is known as "Blue Serengeti" due to its biodiversity including white shark.
"The idea behind the app is to allow everyone to explore the places where these sharks live," said Stanford marine biologist Randy Kochevar, according to Inhabitat. "People realize this is important, but it's hard for them to connect on a visceral, personal level to the incredible biodiversity in their own backyard. Through this app, we're able to put the Blue Serengeti right in their hands. They can follow individual sharks and learn about their lives and feeding habits."
However, tracking sometimes fails if the tag's batteries die before it can transmit valuable data. To improve tracking performance, scientists have designed a new powered tag to monitor a shark up to two years. Marco Flagg, CEO of Desert Star Systems considers the new tags "a smartphone for marine animals" which can be used to track various species of shark other than white shark.
Yet researchers need to conduct further tests to see how effective these devices are since sharks spend less time in the sun. Therefore, the current tags still resort to conventional batteries to collect data then disconnect and emerge to the surface to send the information stored in six months.
The project is an important step in understanding shark's movement or behavior, which improves understanding in how to protect them from overfishing.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
