Shark Spy: How Researchers Are Using Technology to Study These Creatures

Researchers on Cape Cod are employing new "shark spy technology" to study the movement of sharks and help keep people safe in the waters off the Massachusetts coast.

Megan Winton, a senior scientist at the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy, said that researchers will attempt to place cameras onto the backs of some sharks when they're tagged to get unparalleled views of shark behavior from a shark's perspective. This summer will be the second summer that researchers have employed this technology.

"We're using the latest and greatest in shark spy technology, as I like to call it, to learn more about the movements and the behaviors of these animals here when they're off of Cape Cod as well as when they move north into Canadian waters," Winton said in an interview with WBZ-TV. 

"Cape Cod Bay is very similar but very different to the outer Cape, so we're going to learn more about how the sharks are using that environment there," she said, "and we're also hoping to get better information on interactions with fishermen because every year we get more and more reports of white sharks stealing fish off of fisherman's lines because, for a shark, that's a free snack, right? And who doesn't like free snacks?"

Winton also explained that the shark camera technology is also for public safety. White shark activity in New England reaches its highest point during the summer months of July, August, and September. As the waters in the region cool in the fall, the sharks head for warmer waters in the South.

Winton said that tagging and recording the activities of the sharks keeps people safe by providing beach officials with critical information about the creatures' whereabouts in the shallow waters off the beaches.