New report documents 773% increase in Great White attacks on surfers since protection in 1999

Before 1999, not one surfer in Western Australia had ever been killed by a Great White. By 2025, ten surfers had lost their lives.

Same ol story, same theatre, same tears, same croc-teared politicians fronting the media yesterday when another surfer was disappeared by a Great White shark in West Oz, the 25th fatal attack on a surfer in Australia by a White since the fish was listed “vulnerable” in 1999. 

The Great White attacks surfer story has now become so commonplace it was barely reported by the mainstream press yesterday, a cursory paragraph buried deep beneath the stories of house prices and panicked stories about Donald Trump and his razor-gang. The Guardian didn’t even bother covering it.

This, despite a young man being disappeared in front of his girlfriend and a dozen other surfers by a “massive” Great White shark. Gone. His ruined surfboard floating in a pool of blood his tombstone.

Whenever I’m with the it’s-their-ocean crowd, I tell ’em: you gotta understand. This is only the beginning. In a generation nobody will want their kids paddling out into the blue when fatal attacks by Great Whites become a weekly sideshow and not, as in the case recently, every two or three months.

For a little perspective, before 1999, in Western Australia not one surfer had ever been killed by a Great White. Zero. After protection, ten. 

In NSW, one surfer was killed by a Great White in the eighties; after protection, seven. 

South Australia, a known Great White superhighway so attacks weren’t surprising, two surfers were killed pre-protection, after, seven, including four in the last year. 

Queensland is the outlier here. 

One before, one after, a legacy of scrupulous shark netting although readers will remember Nick Slater being hit by a Great White after a build-up of sand had moved the sandbar so far out surfers were sitting adjacent to ‘em. 

As Longtom, RIP, reported, 

“The nets were set, along with an array of eight drum-lines. The nets, just landward and to the north of where Slater was surfing, the drum-lines array, just seaward of the Snapper Rocks line-up. That left a corridor aimed directly at Slater of around three or four hundred metres in width in which a White shark swam before attacking the man.

Interestingly, no fatal hits by Whites on surfers in Victoria or Tasmania. 

However you slice it, it’s an almost eight hundred percent increase in Great White attacks on surfers since the then conservative government listed ‘em as “vulnerable” in 1999. 

The listing prohibited deliberate killing, injuring, or trading of Great Whites, with penalties up to $110,000 or two years imprisonment, though incidental catches by fishers required reporting and release where possible. 

The population has since rebounded to what my ol pal Jeff Schmucker describes as “back to pre-white man biomass.”