Originally published on January 3, 2014

Western Australia's Department of Fisheries has introduced a new system that uses Twitter to alert swimmers and surfers to the presence of sharks.

The Shark Monitoring Network uses acoustic tags attached to sharks' fins and buoyed monitoring devices that pick up signals transmitted by the tags to record the location, size and species of each tagged shark.

The information is then transmitted via satellite to a computer, which posts it on the official Twitter account of Surf Life Saving Western Australia to alert beachgoers.

Western Australia's government relies heavily on helicopter-based spotters and members of the public to report the presence of sharks. Using the new system, scientists have already been able to tag 338 sharks and track them through 19 satellite-linked monitors at local beaches.

--------------------------------------------------------

Welcome to TomoNews, where we animate the most entertaining news on the internets. Come here for an animated look at viral headlines, US news, celebrity gossip, salacious scandals, dumb criminals and much more! Subscribe now for daily news animations that will knock your socks off.

Check out our official website: http://us.tomonews.net/

For news that's fun and never boring, visit our channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/TomoNewsUS

Subscribe to stay updated on all the top stories:
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=TomoNewsUS

Stay connected with us here:
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/TomoNewsUS
Twitter @tomonewsus http://www.twitter.com/TomoNewsUS
Google+ http://gplus.to/TomoNewsUS