Shark bite-resistant wetsuits could reduce the severity of puncture wounds and blood loss caused by shark bites, an Australian study has found.<\/p>\n
Researchers from Flinders University and the New South Wales primary industries department tested the level of protection provided by four modern \u201cbite-resistant\u201d wetsuit materials compared with standard neoprene, to bites from wild white and tiger sharks.<\/p>\n
The results, published in Wildlife Research<\/a>, show that while internal and crushing injuries could still occur, bite-resistant materials did reduce the severity of damage.<\/p>\n Study co-author Prof Charlie Huveneers, who leads the Southern Shark Ecology Group at Flinders University, said while bite-resistant materials don\u2019t eliminate all risk, \u201cthey can reduce blood loss and trauma from major lacerations and punctures, potentially saving lives\u201d.<\/p>\n Although rare, shark bites can have devastating consequences, such as the recent death<\/a> of surfer Mercury Psillakis, near Dee Why beach in Sydney.<\/p>\n In the last 10 years, an average of 20 people have been injured and 2.8 people killed in shark incidents annually, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database<\/a>. Severe injuries and fatalities often occur due to haemorrhaging and blood loss due to injuries and lacerations to major arteries, or limb or tissue loss.<\/p>\n loop of shark biting a test bat<\/a>The materials were tested in the wild with great white sharks and tiger sharks.<\/p>\n The wetsuit materials tested included two already used in commercially available wetsuits, and two materials in development. The designs often incorporate strong, but lightweight materials such as Kevlar or fibres used in sailing rope.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the teeth on white sharks and tiger sharks \u2026 have these really sharp, pointed edges and serrated edges, and that\u2019s where a lot of the damage from bites occurs,\u201d said Flinders University co-author Dr Tom Clarke. \u201cThe material itself stops the tooth from puncturing through the material.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s still likely to be some crushing injuries and internal injuries that may occur if a bite does happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n The materials were tested in the wild \u2013 with white sharks in South Australia\u2019s Spencer Gulf and tiger sharks off Norfolk Island, Queensland.<\/p>\n Researchers attracted sharks using burley and a tethered bait of locally sourced fish. Once a shark attempted to consume the bait, it was removed and replaced by a \u201cbite package\u201d \u2013 a board padded in foam and covered by wetsuit material \u2013 which was tethered to the vessel for recovery. The foam inside \u2013 ethylene and vinyl acetate \u2013 is commonly used in surgical training, and was chosen to closely resemble the density and texture of human tissue and flesh.<\/p>\n Bite damage from 84 white shark bites and 68 tiger shark bites was measured and categorised by severity \u2013 superficial, slight, substantial or critical.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The four materials tested \u2013 Aqua Armour, Shark Stop, ActionTX-S and Brewster \u2013 all reduced the amount of substantial and critical damage compared with standard wetsuit material.<\/p>\n \u201cAll bite-resistant materials decreased the area of bites that had critical damage, which is associated with larger punctures and lacerations,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n While governments have tended to focus on area-based shark management \u2013 from lethal measures like shark nets, to non-lethal options like drone surveillance and Smart drumlines \u2013 researchers say there is growing interest in the potential to add personal protections, like shark deterrents, education and bite-resistant wetsuits, as part of the prevention toolkit.<\/p>\n The conservation psychologist Dr Brianna Le Busque, from the University of South Australia, researches attitudes to sharks among surfers and the public.<\/p>\n Le Busque, who was not involved in the study, said while these measures weren\u2019t a perfect solution, devices like shark shields (worn around the ankle), bite-resistant wetsuits and risk-based education, could be beneficial in giving people back a sense of control, in addition to broader government approaches.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that when it comes to fear of sharks, lack of control is a really big factor in people being really afraid. And so by giving people these evidence-based mitigation strategies, that they can actually take control of, is really important, because it gives them that empowerment as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shark bite-resistant wetsuits could reduce the severity of puncture wounds and blood loss caused by shark bites, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-45911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}