These guys are keeping some unwelcome guests from the 4th of July party.
A surge of sharks is making it’s annual pilgrimage to New York’s beaches — but drones in the sky are working hard to stop the big fish from feasting on swimmers.
The advanced technology has been hovering above the coast and monitoring the prehistoric predators as they increasingly frequent shores from Rockaway Beach to Montauk.
“If you look, you shall find. We’re using that technology in the name of public safety to help prevent something from happening. The likelihood is really, really slim, but it can happen,” Cary Epstein, a lifeguard supervisor who pilots drones at Jones Beach.
“Don’t be confused — people need to know that there is a generic risk of going in the ocean. Usually, people don’t get eaten by sharks, but on occasion, accidents do happen and things do happen. You are entering their house.”
Shark bites have plummeted since the bloody summers of 2022 and 2023 — during which there were 13 reported encounters on the south shore, including five in a particularly gory three-week period.
That scary number dropped to just one incident last summer — with the victim suffering such minor injuries that it took a full-fledged investigation to determine that the cuts similar to one gained from “stepping on a sharp shell” actually came from a juvenile tiger shark, said Epstein.
The shrinking could be thanks to the Empire State seriously beefing up its anti-shark monitoring tools in recent years, with Gov. Hochul this year upping Long Island’s fleet to 46 drones and 67 drone operators.
Epstein and his crew send the tiny aircraft to the skies a minimum of three times per day.
Since spotting an actual shark in the murky waters is like “looking for a needle in a haystack,” operators are instead trying to locate large, swirling pods of bunker fish, a favorite shark delicacy, which are a clear indicator the predators may be nearby.
Once the swarms of bait fish are spotted, lifeguards will move bathers away from the potential feeding frenzy and keep the area clear until it has moved.
“The reality is the sharks are not swimming to the beaches because they know it’s July 4th weekend and they’re looking for a human snack … If there’s a big pod of bunker and it’s close to the swimming area and if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and a shark is having a buffet — you could accidentally get in the way,” explained Epstein.
There have not been any shark sightings at state-run beaches so far this summer, but experts expect that to change around next week.
The big fish typically show up on the stretch of shores from the Rockaways to Montauk around July 4, which is when the waters warm up for the cold-blooded hunters and their scaly prey.
Despite the good track record over the past few years, it’s nearly impossible for experts to promise any status quo for the ancient fish.
“It’s unpredictable what’s going to happen this season,” said Frank Quevedo, an environmental scientist and executive director of the South Fork Natural History Museum.
“That’s what makes scientific research so interesting and intriguing and exciting — there’s still so many answers that we don’t know about.”
Weather, water temperatures and, most importantly, food availability determine where sharks spend their summers — and the warming planet is driving the species closer to New York. Successful conservation efforts also mean that there are more of the beasts.
But Quevedo warns bathers not to be intimidated, emphasizing that shark “encounters” are typically accidental.
“They’re definitely not attacks. They’re experimental bites, if anything … Don’t forget, the only way a shark can catch its prey is by opening its mouth and trying to catch it with its teeth,” the scientist explained.
