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Covering your surfboard in bright lights sounds like an open invitation to great white sharks, but research released Tuesday by Australian scientists found it might actually stave off attacks.
Biologist Laura Ryan said the predator often attacked its prey from underneath, occasionally mistaking a surfer's silhouette for the outline of a seal.
Ryan and her fellow researchers showed that great white sharks were less likely to attack seal-shaped boards decked with bright horizontal lights.
This appeared to be because the lights distorted the silhouette on the ocean's surface, making it appear less appetising.
"There is this longstanding fear of white sharks, and part of that fear is that we don't understand them that well," said Ryan, from Australia's Macquarie University.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, was conducted in the waters of South Africa's Mossel Bay, a popular great white feeding ground.
Seal-shaped decoys were strung with different configurations of LED lights and towed behind a boat to see which attracted the most attention.
The research found that brighter lights were better at deterring sharks, while vertical lights were less effective than horizontal lights.
Ryan said the results were better than expected and is now in the process of building prototypes for use on the underside of kayaks and surfboards.
Australia has some of the world's most comprehensive shark management measures, including monitoring drones, shark nets and a tagging system that alerts authorities when a shark is near a crowded beach.
Ryan said her research could allow less invasive mitigation methods to be used.
The authors said more research was needed to determine whether bull and tiger sharks, which have different predatory behaviours, responded to the lights in a similar way.
Official data shows that more than 1,200 shark incidents have occurred in Australia since 1791, of which 255 resulted in death.
Great white sharks were responsible for 94 of those deaths.
© Agence France-Presse
