How Atlantic coast communities respond to shark sightings

When a lifeguard spotted a dorsal fin cutting through the water Saturday off Nickerson Beach, it triggered responses that state and local officials have honed over the past few years.

First, a lifeguard radios in the sighting, according to Justine Anderson, deputy commissioner of parks and aquatics for the Town of Hempstead.

Lifeguards are deployed on Jet Skis. A drone may be launched, unless it's too windy or there are too many birds in the air. Swimmers are called out of the waters as lifeguards try to confirm the shark sighting.

“We red-flag the beach,” Anderson said. “We take everybody out of the water.”

The state takes a three-pronged approach to coordinating shark safety efforts among Long Island's Atlantic-facing coastal communities.

It starts in the spring during a yearly meetup where local officials learn the state's latest shark protocols. During the summer, an email chain alerts officials from Queens to Montauk if a shark is sighted. And municipalities are using drone technology with more frequency.

After a spate of shark bites off Fire Island in 2018, state officials crafted a new coordination plan. The idea was to get communities talking together, said George Gorman Jr., Long Island regional director of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

After all, sharks don’t recognize Long Island’s overlapping patchwork of jurisdictions.

“We got to thinking that we need to develop a plan, or to come up with a notification system when either agencies or municipalities have shark sightings so that everyone is aware and take appropriate action and put lifeguards on alert,” Gorman said.

'Communication is key'

The parks department assembled a list of about 200 email addresses for municipal government officials whose communities border the Atlantic Ocean. The effort is to alert “all the South Shore of Long Island about what was going on,” Gorman said.

The alert system helps the beachfront lifeguards, "so that they can keep an eye out, they can launch a drone, they can take action to keep swimmers safe," Gorman said.

The state parks department holds an annual pre-beach season meeting in April or May to talk shark protocols.

The meetings bring together local officials, state agencies and marine researchers from Stony Brook University and elsewhere.

At those meetings the state parks department explains its procedures for dealing with dangerous marine life. Parks officials demonstrate how to use the drones for effective shark spotting, Gorman said.

The state has given out grants to municipalities — Hempstead received one last year — to buy drones to better sight sharks.

Long Beach and Hempstead send up their drones as needed, but at Jones Beach, the state parks department schedules at least three launches a day — weather permitting.

“We put the drone up and will scan the entire Jones Beach,” said Cary Epstein, supervising lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park.

It takes about 20 minutes for the drones to give lifeguards eyes on the entire beach.

“We're scanning the shoreline but we do go out several hundred yards and of course we're looking for dangerous marine life, like sharks,” Epstein said. “But we're also looking for large schools of bait and bunker fish, which are typically where the sharks are often found, you know, feeding.”

'On the side of caution'

The sharks sighted off Long Island tend to be a smaller species and are not interested in humans, state officials said.

On Monday some beachgoers at Jones Beach spotted a fin breaking the water.

Lifeguards, who are trained to identify sharks, could see that it was a skate fish, which is large but not dangerous, he said.

“Just to err on the side of caution we flew the drone up and we were able to see it,” Epstein said. “The public also like the fact that they know we're looking out for them."

He added, "We had everyone standing on the shore watching the drone fly over the water.”

At Point Lookout Beach in Hempstead, Johanna Bowers, 42, a school administrator from Bellmore, sat with a friend as their children played in the sand on Monday.

Bowers said she wasn’t too concerned about sharks, especially now that drones are used to monitor the waters.

“You have to get the kids out, especially living on Long Island; you have such a small window to enjoy the beach,” Bowers said.

Knowing that state and local officials are coordinating their efforts to look out for sharks, she said, “makes me a little more comfortable.”