Award-winning journalist says rogue Great Whites are killing Western Australians

"No longer does everyone believe that every single shark life is sacred."

Two prominent voices are questioning the official approach, challenging the prevailing narrative as is the fashion to say, to Great White sharks in Western Australia after three fatal attacks this year: an award-winning journalist and author who, let’s be frank ain’t green, who argues that a few individual sharks are doing the killing, and a former state fisheries scientist who says the population has been badly underestimated for decades.

In a column in the POST, a weekly newspaper serving Perth’s western suburbs, its founder and editor, Bret Christian, wrote that “some uncomfortable truths exist about sharks that kill humans.”

Christian is among the state’s most decorated journalists. His book “Stalking Claremont” about a suburban serial killer won the 2021 Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime. He’s also got an Order of Australia Medal on a mantelpiece somewhere.

The column followed the death of Greg O’Neill, 63, in mid-September, who was eaten alive by a large Great White, the animal thrashing him to and fro in front of onlookers, while swimming twenty yards off Sorrento Beach. Christian rejected the common scientific view that sharks bite humans by mistake. He argued that Great Whites often linger for hours after a fatal attack, giving authorities time to catch them, as he said they could have after Mr. O’Neill’s death and the 2000 death of Ken Crew at North Cottesloe.

His central claim concerns a 2016 tracking study, which he wrote showed the same three tagged sharks repeatedly returning to metropolitan beaches. He asked whether the finding had been played down because it could create pressure to remove protected animals. Christian also drew on the “rogue shark” theory where a few Great Whites are doin’ the killing.

“Academics join others who poo-poo the ‘rogue shark’ theory and campaign heavily against removing sharks for ‘revenge’, though this would at least eliminate the possibility that the same shark may return and endanger others,” Christian writes.

A separate argument, about numbers rather than individual sharks, has come from Jim Penn, the state’s former chief fisheries scientist, who has more than 40 years of experience in stock assessment. Speaking to The West Australian, he called for an independent review of the population’s size and long-term trends.

The most recent estimate, a 2018 assessment by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, put the southwestern stock at about 1,500 adults. Applying the adult-to-juvenile ratio from the eastern estimate, Dr. Penn suggested the total could be close to 10k Great Whites. If so, only 1 to 2 percent of the state’s white sharks are tagged. The state’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development says 171 have been tagged in Western Australia.

Dr. Penn linked the likely growth to surging prey, including salmon, migrating humpback whales and expanding fur seal colonies, some of which lie near recent fatal attack sites at Rottnest Island and Albany. Ignoring that food supply, he told the newspaper, “defies biological logic.”

He contrasted the region with New South Wales, where about 600 Great Whites were killed in beach nets over 90 years. The southern and western stocks were never heavily depleted, he argued, so blanket federal protection was not justified there.

By his count, Western Australia recorded one fatality in the 30 years before the federal listing and 22 in the 30 years since, a 2100 percent increase.

Yeah, two thousand percent and then some. Wild.

Penn compared the situation to saltwater crocodiles, whose recovery under protection has made swimming in parts of northern Australia dangerous. He is not calling for a cull.

Christian, meanwhile, says it ain’t unheard of for cowboys to do a little Great White huntin’ of their own.

Here’s a true story for those who like to ridicule the theory that only a few of the many Great White sharks are responsible for human deaths: Some years ago, but this century, WA surfers were being taken by Great Whites at an alarming rate. Their grieving mates got sick of waiting for government action on the protected species.They accessed a big boat, found and shot a 5m female Great White, took photos and towed the carcass way out to sea. The attacks on surfers stopped immediately.