Australian bite-resistant wetsuits cut shark bite injuries

Australian researchers say specially made bite resistant wetsuit materials can markedly reduce the severity of injuries from great white and tiger shark bites, according to a study published this week in the journal Wildlife Research. The trials, led by Flinders University in Adelaide with involvement from the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, tested four materials behind vessels off South Australia and around Norfolk Island and found they lowered the proportion of bites classified as substantial or critical compared with standard neoprene.

Researchers tested samples of four commercially named or prototype materials, Aqua Armour, Shark Stop, ActionTXS and Brewster, by towing foam-wrapped wooden boards covered in either neoprene or one of the bite resistant pouches and allowing wild sharks to bite. Teams deployed bite packages about 10 metres behind research vessels, kept tension on the recovery line to avoid repeated strikes, and assigned each bite an intensity score from one to three. The trials used white sharks in the Spencer Gulf and Neptune Islands region and tiger sharks near Norfolk Island, about 1,700 kilometres northeast of Sydney.