Should you sea something, say something.
With tens of millions beach-bound this Memorial Day weekend, Latest York-area coastal communities are working additional time to maintain swimmers protected while having fun with the region’s increasingly shark-infested waters.
With sightings — and panic — on the rise, towns are hoping to avoid any Amity Island-like scenarios by rolling out a spread of high-tech tools designed to identify the bite-y beasts well before they get anywhere near the shoreline.
In Latest York, beach burgs are receiving state-level backing, as Albany recently announced latest coordinated efforts with local beaches to fly each drones and helicopters over the waters this yr, to watch for the unwanted interlopers.
State troopers might be scouting areas comparable to Jones and Robert Moses beaches with a very high-tech drone that’s equipped “with thermal imaging, laser range finding, and high-quality cameras to permit for night-time surveillance and patrols in antagonistic weather conditions,” based on a NYS announcement.
“This drone may drop personal flotation devices in emergency situations.”
The news comes as seasonal sightings have already began coming just like the tide — earlier this month, a nine-foot, 434-pound white shark was sighted narrowly off the shore of Smith Point on Fire Island — the identical beach where a person went viral last summer for wrestling with a beast of the ocean while on sand.
Meanwhile, a 15-year-old girl was attacked while browsing off the shore of Stone Harbor, Latest Jersey, just days ago. She suffered lacerations to her foot and calf, which required stitches.
“Drones are a crucial a part of our surveillance of the beaches,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told The Post. “We can have drones within the air, helicopters within the air, we can have boats out within the water and all-terrain vehicles [looking] from the beaches.”
“There’s a certain grid they follow in order that they cover as much territory as possible,” Blakeman said. “It’s a well-thought-out plan. We’re very meticulous.”
In Nassau’s Town of Oyster Bay — where drones are being utilized for the primary time this season on the south shore — lifeguards and bay constables can even undergo special training to higher discover sharks before the animals get too close for comfort.
“There’s an enormous [emphasis] put onto identifying the shapes and the movements of predatory marine animals,” Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino told The Post.
For the primary time, Saladino said, informational safety flyers might be passed out to visitors at Tobay Beach, the town’s popular stretch of sand facing the Great South Bay and Atlantic Ocean.
“We even have utilized a jet ski for patrols and higher communication technology on the boats with the lifeguards,” he said.
Beachgoers aren’t the one ones in for a possible shark sighting this summer. Close calls are actually commonplace for fishermen plying the waters near Latest York City, Tom LaCognata of Rockaway Fishing Charters told The Post.
“We realized we were seeing more sharks closer to shore since around 2019,” LaCognata said. “We had an ideal white last yr about three miles offshore — we’re getting sharks from down south now too, spinner sharks and bull sharks. We had not seen those up to now,” LaCognata said, adding that he’s observed animals like whales and dolphins making their way closer to shore as well.
The captain attributes the change to warmer currents and cleaner waters that lure in prey fish that sharks like to eat.
Still, experts note that the rise in sightings doesn’t necessarily translate to a rise of their numbers.
“It’s not possible that there’s more sharks, based off their reproduction rates,” Long Island Aquarium assistant curator Teddy Tilkin told The Post.
As an alternative, he said, the rationale we’re seeing more of them is as a consequence of the rise in high-tech monitoring tools — together with the step-up in patrols.
“You could have higher drones, you’ve got higher cameras, higher visibility. Once you begin really looking, you’re going to find yourself finding more,” Tilkin said, noting saying that 20 different shark species live off Latest York’s coastline.
“There’s definitely sharks that folks swam with for lots of years. They never really knew because we didn’t have the drones to identify a number of miles out.”
Meanwhile, officials said that a shark attack shouldn’t be your biggest concern on the beach this summer.
“It’s more likely that somebody will drown from the present riptide than from being bitten by a shark,” Blakeman said, noting that the county is rolling out latest awareness initiatives designed to get Latest Yorkers swimming smarter.
And, typically, sharks swimming close by won’t even approach people, Tilkin noted.
“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, they’re not going to trouble you — and after they do it’s often mistaken identity,” he said.
“They’re interested in something and so they don’t have hands. So they sometimes take just a little bite.”
