By Mary Kate McCoy
January 8, 2024
Meet the startup using magnets to keep sharks at bay
7 min
Now, a new company in South Africa is offering an alternative.
Conservation News sat down with Sara Andreotti, a marine biologist and chief operating officer of SharkSafe Barriers, and Gracie White, who leads CI Ventures’ ocean investments, to learn more.
Sharks are slow breeders and the target of intense overfishing — a recipe for extinction.
Conservation News: Paint the picture for me — why is shark conservation so fraught?
Sharks date back 450 million years, making them older than trees and dinosaurs.
It seems like I hear about shark attacks on the news a lot — are they on the rise?
How do governments try to prevent attacks?
And this is where SharkSafe Barriers can help?
Courtesy of Andreotti
SharkSafe Barriers mimics a kelp forest and uses powerful magnets to deter sharks.
That sounds like a win-win. What’s getting in the way of moving to market?
SA: In one word: cost. Upfront, it’s more expensive to install our barriers than nets. However, these barriers will last for at least 20 years with minimum maintenance, making them far cheaper than nets in the long run. In addition to cost, SharkSafe Barriers is a relatively new technology. Shark nets, on the other hand, have been around for almost 100 years — and despite their issues, people and governments are accustomed to them. Changing established systems is always difficult.
During multiple tests, sharks have never crossed the barrier.
How is CI Ventures helping overcome these hurdles?
GW: Each barrier is custom built for the beach it will protect. Even before a sale is made, SharkSafe Barriers representatives need to visit the site and dive to take measurements of the area so they can make a plan for the installation. That can be expensive. CI Ventures is providing a loan and a flexible line of credit to help SharkSafe Barriers get into the market.
What’s next for SharkSafe Barriers?
SA: We recently installed our first commercial barrier on an island in the Bahamas. It’s incredibly exciting to reach this point — I’m hopeful this will give us the momentum we need to grow and prove that sharks and humans can coexist peacefully. It’s been a long road to get here. We first developed the idea 15 years ago and it’s immensely satisfying to finally see it come to fruition. But there’s still much work to be done and we must keep at it. Sharks are slow breeders, which puts them at a higher risk for extinction. And, there’s still so much we don’t know about them.
Our biggest challenge is getting people to see these magnificent creatures differently and understand how important they are to the ocean. Our hope is that by making people feel safe, we can inspire them to want to protect it, and all its creatures.
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