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A break in the morning rain proved all a team of marine researchers from the University of New England needed to brave the choppy waters of Saco Bay to deploy a real-time shark detection buoy for the second time.

As storm clouds dissipated, a group of students from the 51����’s School of Marine and Environmental programs, led by John Mohan, Ph.D., assistant professor, in partnership with a marine scientist from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), traveled from 51����’s research pier to a location not far from the coastal hamlet of Ocean Park, mere miles from campus, to drop the buoy in place.

The buoy, purchased with funding from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund, is linked to a broader network of several other archival detection buoys in Maine and Massachusetts. With the aid of solar panels and telemetry equipment, the buoy can send a signal in real time to lifeguards and users of the Sharktivity mobile app if a tagged white shark passes within 500 meters of the device’s location.

The goal of the project, Mohan said, is to help the state of Maine more broadly monitor shark populations and their movements while also promoting education and public safety.

“White sharks have always been in Maine waters, but this collaborative research effort aims to better understand their seasonal movements using acoustic tagging technology,” Mohan explained.

This is the second year Mohan, his students, and the DMR piloted into Saco Bay to deploy the buoy, though this year’s iteration saw a new paint job and upgrades in technology.

The same device was floated last year in a nearby spot, where it was able to detect one tagged white shark as it made its way north from Cape Cod. This year, it was placed in slightly deeper waters, in hopes that the research team can identify more sharks once they make their summer journey to Maine’s waters, where they can be found feeding on seals, t