By Clare Duffy, CNN Video by John General, Deborah Brunswick and FJ Feng, CNN

New York (CNN) — Warmer and cleaner waters off the coast of Long Island, New York, in recent times have introduced rising numbers of bait fish to the world — and with them, the larger fish that eat them, together with sharks. In some methods, it’s a good sign for the setting. But it’s a special story for swimmers, surfers and seaside goers.

Safety officers at one New York seaside are ramping up using drones to attempt to stop doubtlessly harmful interactions between people and sharks.

Lifeguards and New York State Park Police officers at Jones Beach — a state park that stretches 6.5 miles alongside the Southern coast of Long Island and sees six million guests a yr — are utilizing the know-how to observe the waters off the shore. When they spot sharks or uncommon sea life exercise, they will warn swimmers to remain on the seaside.

The monitoring program started in 2017 however has taken on new urgency following a rash of shark attacks at New York seashores this summer season. While the chance of being attacked by a shark remains low, simply this week, a 65-year-old girl was hospitalized after being bitten by a shark at Rockaway Beach in Queens. The subsequent day, lifeguards at Jones Beach closed the water thrice after attainable shark sightings, two of which have been made with drones.

“I can’t predict whether or not there’s going to be more bites or shark attacks, but what I can tell you is … the more drones that are flying in the air, there’s more of a chance of seeing these animals in their natural habitat,” Park Police Captain Rishi Basdeo informed CNN final month, previous to the most recent assault (which occurred at a special seaside from the place his staff screens). “Just by merely warning people, that in itself is [paying] dividends,” he mentioned.

The New York State Park Police operates a fleet of 19 drones alongside Jones Beach, utilized by lifeguards with backup from officers who can do extra enhanced monitoring by way of a cellular command heart that travels up and down the seaside if one thing uncommon has been noticed within the water. Inside the command heart van, officers can watch a livestream of the drone footage on a TV display to find out if swimmers needs to be faraway from the water.

“You’re getting with the drone a real supreme aerial view of what’s going on in real time on the waterway,” Basdeo mentioned, including that if a shark is inside 400 toes of the shore, officers think about closing the water. “If a shark is in close proximity to the bathing area — or even before we get schools [of fish] there — we are already making that decision … and the lifeguards will stop people from swimming and just safely guide people out of the water.”

On the day final month that Park Police officers gave CNN an indication of the drone monitoring program, the cameras picked up just a few skate fish simply off the shore. But the drones — which have cameras highly effective sufficient to see beneath the floor of the water even from about 25 toes within the air — have beforehand caught footage of sharks swimming solo and feeding on massive faculties of fish.

Operating this system just isn’t low-cost — even the extra low-tech drone kits utilized by lifeguards to do common monitoring price round $6,000 every and require operators skilled in Federal Aviation Administration guidelines, in response to Basdeo. But he says it’s price it to keep away from security dangers to individuals having fun with the seaside. And, he added, “It’s actually cheaper than calling in a police helicopter.”

The know-how has makes use of past looking for sharks, too. The drones might be augmented with an infrared digicam, spotlights and audio system to assist in search and rescue capacities, and will even carry a life preserver out to a distressed swimmer earlier than a lifeguard may get to them.

For instance, “If we get a report that an individual is missing at night, we have an ability aside from calling in a police helicopter … we can send our drones up and put in the infrared capability in the camera and actually see in the dark,” Basdeo mentioned. “Five years ago, we didn’t have this drone capability in our agency, but now it’s spreading and it’s catching on.”

Basdeo additionally burdened that the drones are used for less than restricted, safety-related purposes.

“We’re on strict guidelines when we fly and operate these drones. It is not used to surveil the public. It is used to keep them safe,” Basdeo mentioned. “We don’t fly, or we try not to fly, over large groups of people. There are designated emergency lanes on the beach … where it’s sparsely populated” that operators use to navigate the drones out to the water, he mentioned.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2023 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.