Jessie

An estimated 14,000+ people sleep rough or in temporary shelters across Cape Town, driven by job loss, mental illness, eviction, addiction and structural housing exclusion. Municipal response oscillates between law-enforcement displacement and small-scale NGO provision — neither

Shark-bite fatalities rose in 2025–26, clustered at crowded surf beaches and flood-affected estuaries. The driver is growing overlap between people and sharks in space and time — coastal crowding, recovering shark populations, and climate-shifted prey — not increased aggression.

Rural farming and herding communities across tropical Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America suffer an estimated 1.8–2.7 million envenomings a year, causing roughly 81,000–138,000 deaths and 300,000–400,000 permanent disabilities — despite envenoming being a treatable medical

Bottom-set gillnets off bathing beaches entangle and kill large sharks to thin local numbers. Long-established, but they are a culling device, not a barrier: sharks pass around them, bycatch of turtles, dolphins and rays is high, and bite-reduction evidence is weak.

Phone apps push real-time shark alerts — automatically when a tagged shark passes an acoustic listening station, plus crowd-sourced or spotter-confirmed sightings. Cheap to distribute and good for awareness, but only tagged or seen sharks appear, risking false reassurance.

Trained pilots fly drones over patrolled beaches, spotting sharks from above in real time so lifeguards can warn or clear the water. Non-lethal, near-zero marine impact, and the same flights also catch rip currents and missing swimmers. Limited to good weather and clear water.

A fence from seabed to surface and shore to shore fully encloses a swim area, keeping sharks out without trapping or killing wildlife. Inside the enclosure protection is near-absolute, but it suits sheltered beaches only and protects just that zone, not the open surf.

Cut overlap by changing when and where people swim: avoid dawn, dusk and night; stay out after heavy rain and away from river mouths and murky water; keep clear of baitfish, seals and fishing; swim at patrolled beaches. Cheap and universal, but only as good as compliance.

Repurpose vacant inner-city buildings into permanent, free-entry hygiene centres with showers, toilets, shaving supplies and sanitary products. Personal-care brands cover running costs via in-kind product and naming rights, with no conditional access and an NGO running the site.

NSW runs the most integrated tagged-shark alert network: roughly 37 acoustic listening stations (at least one in every coastal local government area) detect tagged white, tiger and bull sharks and automatically push an…

Shark Spotters has operated since 2004 in Cape Town: trained observers positioned on mountainsides 50–110 m above the sea scan the water and, on spotting a shark, trigger a flag-and-siren warning that clears swimmers an…

The NSW SharkSmart campaign operationalizes behavioural risk reduction at state scale through signage, a mobile education van programme, school-holiday pop-up events, and condition-based alerts and warnings during eleva…

After a four-month trial at Coogee Beach (December 2013–April 2014), the City of Cockburn installed an Eco Shark Barrier made of rigid plastic mesh panels that exclude sharks while letting small marine life pass, avoidi…

Hong Kong introduced seabed-to-surface shark prevention barriers in the early-to-mid 1990s after a cluster of fatal attacks between 1991 and 1995. Unlike gillnets, the barriers fully enclose the swimming area from seabe…

Australia's oldest beach shark program, operating continuously since 1937. For the 2025–26 season, bottom-set gillnets were deployed at 51 beaches across 8 local government areas between Newcastle and Wollongong (1 Sept…

The Queensland SharkSmart drone trial ran 2020–2024, with Surf Life Saving Queensland pilots flying 17,954 flights over 10 beaches (16,601 in South East Queensland, 1,353 in North Queensland) covering 7,181 km. A peer-r…

Surf Life Saving NSW has flown shark-surveillance drones at up to roughly 50 NSW beaches each summer since December 2021 under the NSW Shark Management Program, with trained pilots clearing the water when a dangerous sh…