The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has agreed to allow trained drone pilots to fly drones at Coogee, in Sydney's eastern suburbs. The decision comes after a woman was badly mauled by a shark at the beach at the weekend. Flying drones over the area had previously been banned because of how close the beach sits to Sydney airport.
The woman injured in the attack has been identified as 35-year-old Leah Stewart. She was badly mauled by a shark at Coogee at the weekend, and she remains in hospital in a critical condition. Her injuries have kept attention on the beach and on what can be done to make the water safer for swimmers.
Until now, drone flights had been off limits at Coogee, with the ban tied to the beach's proximity to Sydney airport. That restriction had prevented the kind of aerial monitoring used at some other beaches, even as concerns about sharks in the area grew.
The change appears to have come about quickly. The matter was settled after a meeting, and the flights were then allowed. The move has been welcomed as a sensible approach, with the hope expressed that it will spread to other popular beaches that are similarly affected by that kind of ban.
Professor Callum Brown is the head of the fish lab at Macquarie University, and he uses drones to survey sharks. His work involves flying drones over the water to monitor and study the animals, the same type of activity that had been restricted at Coogee under the earlier ban.
Brown says an early warning system could be up and running fairly quickly at the beaches using existing technology. He notes that the drones used on the beaches are flown by trained pilots, the same standard now being applied at Coogee, and he hopes the approach can be extended more widely along the coast.