{"id":140600,"date":"2025-09-13T08:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/140600\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T08:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T08:41:08","slug":"are-shark-attacks-on-the-rise-in-australia-and-what-is-being-done-to-reduce-the-risk-of-fatal-interactions-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/140600\/","title":{"rendered":"Are shark attacks on the rise in Australia? And what is being done to reduce the risk of fatal interactions? | Sharks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercury Psillakis had spotted the shark. Moments before he was fatally attacked<\/a> by what is believed to have been a 3.5-metre great white last Saturday at Long Reef beach in Sydney, the surfer warned his friends about the animal.<\/p>\n

\u201cMerc saved his friends in the surf,\u201d his family said in a statement this week. \u201cHe was aware of the risks of the ocean, and while he loved surfing, he was always vigilant about keeping himself safe. Unfortunately, this was a tragic and unavoidable accident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Psillakis\u2019s death came as some of Australia\u2019s best scientists are working to make shark encounters less common \u2013 even if the risk will never be zero.<\/p>\n

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Are shark attacks on the rise?Mercury Psillakis, victim of a shark attack at Long Reef, with his wife and daughter. Photograph: Supplied<\/p>\n

According to the Australian Shark Incident Database<\/a>, maintained by Taronga Conservation Society Australia, there were 1,285 shark \u201cincidents\u201d between 1791 and June 2025. Some are classified as \u201cprovoked\u201d incidents, for example, when a person creates bait by spearfishing or snorkels close to sharks.<\/p>\n

Others are \u201cunprovoked\u201d: when a shark attempts to bite a human not engaged in provocative activities.<\/p>\n

Short-term trends within the data are hard to pin down. This year there have been four fatalities, all from unprovoked bites.<\/p>\n

Last year, there were 13 unprovoked bites resulting in no fatalities \u2013 10 fewer unprovoked bites than in 2023, when there were four fatalities. In 2020, there was a gruesome tally of seven unprovoked fatal attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But over the longer term a trend has emerged.<\/p>\n

\u201cBroadly speaking, across Australia and over the last two decades, there\u2019s been an increase in the number of shark bites,\u201d says Prof Charlie Huveneers, the director of Flinders University\u2019s Marine and Coastal Research Consortium.<\/p>\n

More people are using the water than ever before \u2013 but that is only part of the explanation.<\/p>\n

Coastal population growth, climate change, habitat depletion, uptake of watersports, weather anomalies, distribution of prey and even better wetsuits \u2013 keeping us in the water for longer and over cooler months \u2013 are among 40 factors that, depending on the location, are likely to have contributed to the rise, Huveneers says.<\/p>\n

There is no silver bullet that\u2019s going to eliminate the risk of shark bites Prof Charlie Huveneers<\/p>\n

Scientists know that bites occasionally occur in clusters, but even those are hard to explain.<\/p>\n

Fatalities are a different story. Rob Harcourt, emeritus professor of marine ecology at Macquarie University, says the number of deaths from shark bites today is likely to be the same or lower than in the 1930s, per capita, because of faster emergency responses, tourniquet kits at every surf lifesaving club and first aid training.<\/p>\n

A lifeguard operates a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone) to patrol the waters at Dee Why beach in NSW. Photograph: Ayush Kumar\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

At any rate, the odds of being bitten are minute. While it\u2019s impossible to accurately gauge how many people enter the ocean on any given day, Surf Life Saving Australia\u2019s annual national coastal safety survey found there were 16.6m visits to the coast last year.<\/p>\n

Florida Museum\u2019s International Shark Attack File<\/a> lists the odds of death by shark attack in the US at one in 4.3m. The lifetime risk figure was calculated by dividing the 2021 population by the number of shark fatalities and a person\u2019s life expectancy.<\/p>\n

Even for a surfer who enters the territory of predatory sharks every day, the risk remains tiny, Huveneers says. Yet, the dread runs deep.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a primordial fear, and it\u2019s based on a lack of control,\u201d Harcourt says. \u201cHumans are very poor at gauging risk \u2013 you\u2019re much more likely to die drowning in a rip than you are to be eaten by a shark.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fear, perhaps, partly comes from the knowledge that sharks are what the Marine Stewardship Council\u2019s Dr Adrian Gutteridge calls an evolutionary success story, predating dinosaurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve been around for that long, you\u2019re doing something right,\u201d he says of the top-order predators.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s strict fisheries management means its waters are a \u201clifeboat\u201d to some shark species that are threatened elsewhere in the world. But while Gutteridge is proud of healthy oceans that typically mean healthy shark numbers, he says attacks like Saturday\u2019s are hard to talk about, striking at the heart of what it means to be human.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to being an ocean user myself \u2013 and Australians being amongst the highest users of oceans \u2013 questions certainly need to be asked about how we can be as safe as we can be,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Managing risk<\/p>\n

The desire to mitigate the risk, no matter how low, means Australia has become a world leader in shark research, a discipline that has taken off in the past 20 to 30 years. Today, managing the overlap of sharks and people is more nuanced than it\u2019s ever been.<\/p>\n

Possibly the biggest threat to sharks in Australia comes from Queensland\u2019s catch-and-kill approach in the name of beach safety, Gutteridge says. There, sharks are baited with drumlines and killed as part of a program that received an $88m boost after the fatal mauling of Bribie Island surf lifesaver Charlize Zmuda<\/a>, 17, in February.<\/p>\n

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In New South Wales, more than 90% of marine animals caught in nets<\/a> off the state\u2019s beaches over the summer of 2023-24 were non-target species.<\/p>\n

A diver approaches a humpback whale to cut free the 13-metre whale trapped in nets off Yamba, north of Sydney. Photograph: Grahame Long\/AP<\/p>\n

In response to environmental concerns about the indiscriminate bycatch, the NSW government had planned to trial a rollback of nets<\/a> across three councils, including the northern beaches council that covers Long Reef. But on Tuesday, the agriculture minister, Tara Moriarty, said the trial had been halted at least for this summer<\/a> in light of Psillakis\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cShark nets are a previous technology, but I have every sympathy with the state government not pulling out the shark nets immediately after someone gets killed. I think that you can remove these things slowly,\u201d Harcourt says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve moved from very much 20th-century technology with drumlines and shark nets to highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art technologies. It\u2019s a huge investment for a very low risk, but the social licence is what counts here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In NSW, white, tiger and bull sharks are caught in daylight hours on Smart (shark management alert in real time) drumlines, a non-lethal tagging method developed in Reunion Island that lures sharks using baited hooks. When an animal is hooked on one of 305 lines, operators receive a ping and head to the spot in 17 minutes, on average. The shark is tagged, released further out to sea<\/a>, and then tracked by satellite and acoustically.<\/p>\n

The impact on human safety is immediate. \u201cThe animals are stressed by their being caught, so they don\u2019t come back to the beaches for a couple of months,\u201d Harcourt says.<\/p>\n

A tiger shark with an acoustic tag attached. The tags last for up to a decade, sending a signal to receivers along the coastline. Photograph: Rob Harcourt<\/p>\n

Acoustic tags last up to a decade, pinging every time the animal swims near any of the 37 receivers along the state\u2019s coastline. This data is transmitted directly to the\u00a0NSW SharkSmart app<\/a>, alerting the public that an animal is close to shore, as well as to the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD).<\/p>\n

Since 2015, the state\u2019s shark management program has tagged 1,499 white sharks \u2013 about a third to a fifth of eastern Australia\u2019s estimated whites \u2013 719 tiger sharks and 230 bull sharks, according to Dr Paul Butcher, DPIRD\u2019s principal research scientist. One animal travelled 30,000km in three years.<\/p>\n

The resulting data, Harcourt says, is \u201cthe best in the world\u201d. It is being used in collaboration with Surf Life Saving Australia, DPIRD, Macquarie University, and Risk Frontiers to build a predictive model that forecasts where and when conditions are most likely to lead to shark bites.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will allow people to say, \u2018OK, today\u2019s a high-risk day for a surf. Maybe I\u2019ll come back tomorrow\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is the way of the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, too, is another component of the program under development, which uses water samples to detect sharks by analysing environmental DNA, Butcher says.<\/p>\n

Then, there is a modern take on simply keeping watch. Drones have become a familiar part of a day<\/a> on beaches, with surf lifesavers \u2013 pillars of shark awareness around the country \u2013 operating shark surveillance drones on 50 beaches in NSW, for example.<\/p>\n

AI that distinguishes between dangerous and non-dangerous animals is being developed, and trials of unpiloted drones flying from a central location in Sydney are under way, Butcher says. His team also provides Surfing NSW with drones and shark-bite specific first aid training.<\/p>\n

\"SharkShark spotting: how a drone app is helping to keep Sydney’s surfers safe in the water \u2013\u00a0video<\/p>\n

Civilians, too, are part of the efforts. In Bondi, Jason Iggleden runs the Drone Shark app<\/a>, monitoring the world-famous beach and its neighbouring surf and swim spots for marine life. Watching the water through his live drone video, Iggleden has, on many occasions, contacted nearby lifeguards to warn them of a potentially dangerous shark he\u2019s spotted well before anyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore eyes on the water is a great help,\u201d Harcourt says.<\/p>\n

But, like all measures, drones have their limits, particularly in high winds and low water clarity. For Huveneers, the safest approach is a blend of strategies that limit overlaps with sharks and the chance of being bitten.<\/p>\n

Some wearable electronic deterrents can reduce the risk of being bitten by 60%, he says. When the worst does happen, the key is reducing the level of injury. Huveneers\u2019 research has found that the same material used in sailing ropes, when integrated into neoprene wetsuits, provides good protection against catastrophic injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately,\u201d he says, \u201cat the moment, there is no silver bullet that\u2019s going to eliminate the risk of shark bites.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercury Psillakis had spotted the shark. Moments before he was fatally attacked by what is believed to have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-140600","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}