Warning sign for sharks. Photo courtesy of Flickr/Creative Commons.

CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)- The council of the South-African town of Cape Town is working on implementing new shark nets in Fish Hoek. These ones are designed to keep sharks out, rather than the conventional nets that are designed to kill them.

What makes Fish Hoek’s “exclusion nets” a world first is that they are being designed to be deployed and raised on a daily basis.

Together with the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board the council is developing nets that go in and come out of the water everyday. Normally exclusion nets are  permanent fixed installation.  The aim of the Fish Hoek nets is to be able to deploy them in 40 minutes. If it takes two hours every day, it is a very costly exercise.

The main purpose of course of the nets at the southern end of Fish Hoek beach is to give the public a swimming area safe from sharks. They will be removed at sunset, so that marine life can have free movement at night. They will also be removed in rough seas, which could damage them, and during times when they could pose a risk of entanglement to marine life, such as during the whale season.

Read more at IOL.