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.” 

"Establishment science is colouring outside the lines when it comes to the reality of shark attacks on humans."

Another surfer disappeared by a Great White shark in Australia. This time at Duke of Orleans Bay, east of Esperance on West Australia’s uber-sharky south coast. 

Witnesses report seeing a “massive” Great White shark and a surfer in chest deep water was then reported to be in great distress before failing to make it to the shoreline. 

It’s hard to even begin to imagine the situation facing the loved ones and friends of the unfortunate surfer involved. Not to mention the coastal community in that beautiful part of the world. It’s not presumptuous to say that the thoughts of the surfing world are with them. 

Yet once again the response from authorities tends towards misinformation. The official line of reportage is that the surfer was involved in a “serious shark bite incident”.

Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty Four deals with a state untethered from the society it governs. Its institutions are not only removed from the people they purport to serve but from any semblance to reality itself. 

In our current times when the bashing of elite  institutions rates as highly as sportsball amongst the misshapen and unsightly plebeian masses, there’s no shortage of punters willing to becry a return to such Orwellian circumstance. Perhaps with justification.

As surfers, we are at the coal face of apparent institutional chicanery. We appear to  find ourselves confronted by a scientific establishment which seems determined to undermine any street cred it may have once had and replace it with hollow appeals to authority.  The surfer/scientist relationship is teetering on becoming combative. Surfers are faced with statements and claims from the scientific establishment which are based on no empirical science whatsoever and we are expected to consume these subjective opinions wholesale.

For example the scientific community, which is not a monolith but its media facing Talking Heads presents as such, is steadfast in its insistence that sharks don’t attack humans. No, they merely bite people. The insinuation is that sharks don’t want to eat people and that attacks are nothing more than unfortunate incidents arising from mistaken identity on the innocent shark’s behalf. 

This despite the regular full consumption of shark attack victims. This despite hundreds – thousands! – of recorded episodes of sharks returning time and again to finish their human meal in front of eye witnesses. This despite historically infamous accounts such as the people-buffet after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in WW2.

Yet still the Orwellian dictate that every surfer chewed and swallowed into the gullet of a shark must be reported as a bite. Lest those toothy carnivores develop an unsightly reputation as consumers of flesh…

Then there’s the utter dismissal of the concept of the Rogue Shark. An idea that’s portrayed by the scientific establishment as a kooky conspiracy up there with invading Martians and their penchant for anal probes on unwitting flyover country farming folk. 

Yet is there any empirical evidence at all that certain individual sharks aren’t open to the idea of chowing down on a surfer every now and again if the seals, dolphins and snapper are a bit elusive at the moment? Particularly if they’ve had a bit of previous success in the game. 

Just because all sharks don’t enjoy the taste of humans, doesn’t mean that some particular individuals might not find it quite acceptable in a pinch. Metaphorically, most people I know would rather eat a yard of undercooked foreskin than an Australian Salmon but I also know a bloke who eats them on occasion because they’re easy to catch.

Point being, that there’s no accounting for taste. So where does the scientific community get off dismissing the notion of a large predatory fish occasionally trending outside the realms of known behaviour ….especially when the science itself always comes with a caveat regarding the impenetrable conditions confronting discovery of such an elusive species. 

Where is the humility of science in all this?

It seems to have been subjugated to political activism. A skewed and almost misanthropic desire to reconcile the worldwide reality of overfishing with the mortal threat posed by surfers who play among these XXL flesh eating super predators.

Just to put my colours to the mast – I’m against the culling of potential man eating fish. Because killing sharks accused of potential threat is nothing more than punishment for thought crime in the aquatic realm. If a shark harms a human then dispatch it to Davey Jones’ locker ASAP.

Until that time it’s another innocent animal going about its business.

In this instance it’s no less than the  business of being majestic and magnificent and representative of the irreducible power of nature. This remains true despite the similar hyperbole bleated by the urban Greens who’ve never strayed beyond knee deep at a chlorinated public pool.

Establishment science is colouring outside the lines when it comes to the reality of shark attacks on humans.

Recalibration of the field is in order if credibility is to be maintained. Surfers are natural allies with the scientific community, our voices and perspectives should be valued, not dismissed.