What sort of testing has been done on the Ocean Guardian (Shark Shield) units?Updated a year ago

The electronic wave-form used in the Ocean Guardian has been on the market since 1995, originally marketed as the Shark POD by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board, and has proved its effectiveness in the field time and time again. 

Ocean Guardian devices have been thoroughly tested in the laboratory, and on-site with Great Whites, both in Cape Town, South Africa, and Neptune Island, South Australia. Field testing of the Ocean Guardian on predator sharks involves attracting sharks using blood and offal. The unit is turned on and placed into the water with fish bait attached to attract the shark. The shark's behavior, as it investigates the food source, is then observed and recorded.  

For more details on Ocean Guardian Effectiveness and Scientific Research Testing please see the website here. 

Recent independent research funded by the Western Australian State Government, as part of its investment in Shark Hazard Mitigation, lead by Professor Shaun Collin, Director of the University of Western Australia Oceans Institute, has proven the efficacy of Shark Shield's technology.  

Collins stated, "during testing Shark Shield successfully turned sharks away in nine out of ten times. We hope this research will ultimately lead to the development of new shark deterrent technologies in the future". A renowned expert in his field, Collins also authored Electroreception in Vertebrates and Invertebrates published in the Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Oxford Academic Press 2010. 

In 2012, Dr Charlie Huveneers from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) and Flinders University and his team also tested the effectiveness of Shark Shield. Part of this independent scientific testing used a seal decoy off the coast of South Africa, with white sharks seen to visibly abort attack charges with no surface breach observed with the Shark Shield device turned on. 

Dr Vic Peddemors, a renowned shark scientist who has been working with sharks since 1987, was involved in statistical testing of Shark Shield's effectiveness back in 2003, also in South Africa on white sharks. During this testing it was shown that by using a Shark Shield the probability of an attack was reduced from 0.70 to 0.08.