This is a summer that Australians want to forget. Australia was shocked and outraged by last month’s Bondi massacre of the innocents by Islamist fanatics. Its government and parliament have descended into angry chaos in Bondi’s wake. Massive bushfires devastated much of the states of Victoria and New South Wales this month, and a tropical cyclone brought destruction to parts of Queensland. And, on a smaller but no less frightening scale, sharks have been terrorising Australia’s east coast, and the Sydney area in particular.
In less than 48 hours this week, there were four shark attacks injuring people. Two occurred off the northern Sydney beaches of Dee Why and Manly. The Dee Why victim was not seriously injured, and managed to ward off his attacker. The Manly victim, a young surfer, was severely maimed and his leg could not be saved. His attack happened shortly after 13-year-old boy had a chunk bitten out of his surfboard.
The fourth attack was actually inside Sydney Harbour, where shark attacks are very rare. A 12-year-old boy was swimming not far off a beach in the eastern suburb of Vaucluse when he was attacked and severely mauled around his arms and torso. The boy was left critically injured and sadly, died in hospital earlier today.
Further north, a surfer had a frightening encounter with a shark near the town of Port Macquarie, his wetsuit saving him from serious injury. And, in a scene that could have been lifted from Jaws, the remains of a Canadian working holidaymaker were found on Queensland’s sandy Fraser Island, surrounded by a pack of dingoes which appeared to be feasting on the remains. It’s not yet clear whether the woman actually was killed in the water by a shark and washed up in the beach, but it looks likely.
In each of the confirmed shark attacks the culprit was the same species: bull sharks. Along with Great White and Tiger sharks, bull sharks are apex sea predators, partial to a human meal when one presents itself. Bulls thrive in warmer waters, heading south in the spring and summer and returning to tropical waters in the colder months.
Tragically for the Sydney victims, the conditions for bull shark attacks were ideal – for the sharks. The waters in the region are warm – 24 degrees Celsius this week – and following heavy storm rains in recent days, silted runoffs from the rivers feeding Sydney Harbour create exactly the type of murky waters that enable bull sharks to stalk their prey, undetected until it is too late.
Inevitably, climate change has been blamed for the prevalence of bull sharks, and therefore these and other recent attacks. But it’s currently high summer in eastern Australia as it has always been. And as all Australians know, at this time of year, the risk of a shark attack is ever present, especially if you venture away from beach crowds. Even spending a penny in the sea can tempt a curious and hungry shark if they happen to be passing.
That sharks are merely doing their thing in their own habitat, however, doesn’t dispel our fear and loathing of them. People want the sharks dealt with and culled if necessary. Former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott swims and surfs at Sydney’s northern beaches, including Manly and Dee Why. ‘Three shark attacks in three days in Sydney. This didn’t happen because of the weather or the time of day but because there are too many sharks. It’s way past time to reintroduce the shark fishery,’ Abbott wrote on Facebook. Posting after the Vaucluse attack, he said, ‘We cannot put the protection of sharks ahead of the safety of people.’
Abbott is right about the shark threat, but wrong in calling for a cull of the sea’s apex predator by the highest predator of all, man. Let’s keep this in perspective: in the last five years, the Australian shark-incident database reported 22 shark bite incidents around the whole Australian coast. Of these, five proved fatal and 14 caused varying degrees of injury.
By contrast, Australia’s Royal Life-Saving Society’s National Drowning report 2025 found there were 82 beach drownings last year. You are far more likely to drown in Australian waters than be attacked by a shark.
The lesson of these latest attacks is not to cull the sharks. It’s better balancing the needs of man and nature by taking all reasonable precautions to protect people from harm. That includes ending environmentalists’ pushes to remove shark nets from Australian beaches, especially in the peak summer months, and doing more to educate beachgoers, especially inland and overseas visitors, on the importance of being shark alert and not taking your safety for granted.
But those who then willingly go further out surfing or swimming, beyond ready help but knowing the risks of an unprovoked attack – however slight – have to accept it’s the shark’s world, not theirs.
Comments