Western Australia’s fisheries minister ruled out a widespread shark cull after a fatal attack in Perth, but ordered a “catch and kill” response against the shark responsible. The attack marked Australia’s fifth fatal shark attack of 2026. The decision came as a researcher examined whether knowledge and exposure can shape public attitudes toward sharks, whose global numbers have fallen by more than 70 per cent since Jaws came out in 1975.
Fear, Knowledge and Conservation
Adelaide University researcher Juliana Gleaves is studying how people’s perceptions of sharks connect with conservation efforts. Her initial research found that people who knew more about sharks felt less fear and were more likely to support efforts to save them.
Gleaves’s study focuses on conservation psychology. It will examine how movies and media reporting shape people’s views of sharks. Later, researchers will use virtual reality to test whether an immersive experience changes those views. Participants will be able to “swim” with sharks behaving neutrally; researchers will assess whether the experience encourages more positive views and greater concern for shark conservation.
Gleaves said Jaws sparked her fascination with sharks, though she conceded the film wasn’t great for sharks’ public relations. Robert Shaw played Quint, the shark hunter in the film. The article says there are 500 shark species and that overall numbers have fallen 70 per cent since the 1970s; it also reports a global decline of more than 70 per cent since Jaws was released in 1975.
Risk in the Water
Surfers Duncan Chamberlain and Mal Biscoe said people who regularly use the ocean tend to have a more realistic view of shark-attack risk. Gleaves’s initial study found surfers were more likely to worry about sunburn than sharks.
Chamberlain, 74, has surfed for 54 years and heads into the Southern Ocean from his hometown beach at Middleton, south of Adelaide, three or four times a week. When he encounters sharks, he follows a 20-minute rule. “You go in [to shore] for 20 minutes and you presume they're cruising along the coast, so they've moved on by then, so you go back out,” he said. “If you look at the statistics, you're in far more danger driving to the beach on the roads.”
Biscoe has surfed for more than 30 years and runs his own surf school. A firefighter who had just returned from fighting Canadian forest fires, he said assessing risk came naturally to him. He saw no comparison between the risk of a shark encounter and surfing’s physical and mental health benefits.
Biscoe estimated he had about eight shark encounters over the years. Sharks had swum under or around him or appeared in the distance. In the closest encounter, a harmless wobbegong climbed onto his friend’s back while they were surfing. “We had a laugh about it and then we're like, 'I wonder what scared it out of the water?' But I've never had an incident where I feel threatened,” he said.
Government Response and Limits of the Report
Biscoe said some students mentioned sharks during surf lessons. He told them they were more likely to step on a ray or get injured by their own board than by a shark. He wasn’t sure whether surfers were more concerned about shark conservation than other species, but said he believed they were generally environmentally aware. “I think surfers and people that live along the ocean are more concerned just about the natural environment itself, whether it be sharks or dolphins, whales or rays or just fish life,” he said.
In 2025, Australia recorded five fatal shark attacks and 23 shark bite incidents in total. The Western Australian fisheries minister ruled out a widespread cull as inappropriate, while authorizing the targeted “catch and kill” order after the Perth attack.
A separate report about swarms of moths in southeast Australia, which could indicate recovery of an endangered species, couldn’t be verified from the available source fetches. Its URL returned no article content through either fetch attempt, so no details about the moths or the species could be confirmed.