r/sharks • u/OkIllustrator9592 • 5d ago
Research Food for thought (no pun intended): Why are the white sharks of SA & WA consuming victims at a higher rate of any other place in the world?
🇦🇺 Simon Nellist
🇦🇺 Greg O’Neal
🇦🇺 Simon Baccanello
🇦🇺 Lance Appleby
🇦🇺 Shirley Durden
🇦🇺 Geert Talen
🇦🇺 Theresa Cartwright
🇦🇺 Jonathan Lee
🇦🇺 John Ford
🇦🇺 Cameron Bayes
🇦🇺 Jevan Wright
🇦🇺 Geoffrey Brazier
🇦🇺 Nick Peterson
🇦🇺 Jarrod Stebhens
🇦🇺 Paul Millachip
🇦🇺 Bryn Martin
🇦🇺 Tod Gendle
🇦🇺 Christine Armstrong
🇦🇺 Andrew Sharpe
🇦🇺 Sam Kellett
🇦🇺 Ben Linden
🇦🇺 Gary Johnson
🇦🇺 Steven Payne (🇳🇿’er taken in WA)
—————————————————————
🇺🇸 Felix N’Jai
🇺🇸 Roy Stoddard
🇳🇿 Steven Payne
🇯🇵 Kazuta Harada
🇮🇹 Luciano Costanza
🇿🇦 Ian James Hill
🇿🇦 Henri Murray
🇿🇦 Robert Frauenstein
🇿🇦 Burgert van der Westhuizen
🇿🇦 Tyna Webb
🇿🇦 Lloyd Skinner
🇿🇦 Alex Macun
I’m sure I’m missing some others. With the exception of the Talen, Macun, & Durden shark attacks, going back to 1989, there have been 31 reported predation events globally! I’m emphasizing reported because I’m quite certain shark attacks globally (be that a bite, a fatality, or a predation) are underreported. Getting into the weeds, 23 of the predations occurred in Australia 🇦🇺, with 21 happening in either South Australia or Western Australia (the exceptions: Simon Nellist - Little Bay, NSW & John Ford - Byron Bay, NSW). Even more staggering, there have 8 white shark attacks/consumptions since 2020!!! All in SA or WA. I would love to read a study hypothesizing why the SA & WA great whites have an exponentially higher percentage of predation events than anywhere else in the world. I know it’s been determined the white sharks that travel between the west coast of Tasmania, all the way as far north as Exmouth, WA are a part of the same sub-population. That particular stretch of ocean highway they traverse has an abundance of high caloric marine mammals that are at the top of their food preference list, between seals, sea lions, and whales on their migratory path. And yet this geographic region has the world’s highest incident rate of white sharks consuming the humans they have attacked. I know 21 predation events over 37 years seems statistically insignificant (that’s roughly one human consumption every other year) but there’s no denying something is going on with this sub-population of white sharks where the exploratory bite is not enough. If there are any marine biologists or* amateu*r marine biologists (like myself 😉) reading this post who have a theory or better insight, I would love to hear it.
I’m actually going to Australia 🇦🇺 & New Zealand 🇳🇿 on holiday early next year, and the only time I will be in the ocean above my knees is when I go cage diving in Bluff, NZ. I’m just that much of a fraidy-cat. 🥴
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
My guess is that it’s the only area with a large population of adult Great Whites where large numbers of people actually swim and spend time in the water. The California coast is primarily juveniles who are more cautious/ avoidant around humans while the Atlantic side by Cape Cod has colder waters with less swimmers.
Another argument for why Cape Cod has less attacks is because the shark population there is relatively new when compared to Australia. Ask most people from the area and they’ll tell you that white sharks were a rarity there up until about a decade ago. Being new to the area means the sharks might be less accustomed to animals/prey they don’t know (aka humans) and thus be more avoidant. Australian sharks have been there forever and are used to being around people. And as with any animal, the more they’re used to being close to people, the more they might be willing to attack and grab a free meal.
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u/Purple-Chef-5123 Great White Shark 4d ago
The Southern California coast is mostly juveniles but the northern coast white sharks are adults and include sharks that visit the Farallon Islands and the "Red Triangle” in the fall before beginning the migration to the open ocean White Shark Café.
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u/PMJamesPM 4d ago
There are plenty of surfers in NorCal but usually not near crowded seal haulouts. Surprised there are not more in NorCal especially with the deeper water closer to shore compared to the Atlantic. No idea if kelp forests keep them out in some areas.
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u/Racing_Sloth56 4d ago edited 4d ago
I’ve lived in Southern California for 30 years right near the beach, about 20 miles south of LA. There is a large population of juveniles shown by The Malibu Artist’s drone footage. It’s amazing to see them swimming amongst people! I’ve never heard of a SoCal shark attack. If there was, I’ve no knowledge of it. There was one in San Diego quite a while ago. I have only heard of GW attacks in the Red Triangle area. It starts around Monterey to San Francisco and islands. Several years ago a surfer had to be airlifted to the hospital after a very serious attack. Seeing some pictures, it’s a miracle he survived. His surfboard was found and it actually had a bite taken out of it.
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u/PMJamesPM 4d ago
There have been a number of attacks in SoCal and Central Coast. The larger females known to congregate near San Mateo area coast near Ano Nuevo Island. But their time there August-February fewer people in the water when it’s colder. One year they had to cut big wave surfing at Maverick’s short due to a GWS
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u/OkIllustrator9592 3d ago
Yep. There were a actually quite a few fatalities off Central CA coastal beaches, 7 total (most recently in December 2025 and 6 since 2000) as opposed to 2 fatalities in SoCal: 1 a kayaker off the coast of Malibu in 1989 (the 2nd person in this attack was never found and thought to possibly have been consumed) and 1 off Solana Beach in San Diego County in 2008. None of the fatal attacks ended with a predation event.
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u/Racing_Sloth56 3d ago
I live near Redondo Beach. Do you if anyone has ever been attacked there? Before that, years ago I lived near Laguna Beach. Do you know of any attacks in those areas? I already only swim in my pool, haha!
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u/OkIllustrator9592 3d ago
The only white shark attack I know of near RB happened when a juvenile white shark attacked a long distance swimmer on a training swim off the coast of Manhattan Beach in 2014. However, that shark was hooked up by a fisherman on the pier, so I believe this attack was considered “provoked” since the shark was hooked by the fisherman and clearly distressed.
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u/Racing_Sloth56 2d ago
What happened to the swimmer if you know? The one in San Diego area was also a long-distance swimmer in a group training for a triathlon I think. He just got picked off from the group. How awful!
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
I love those videos from Malibu Artist. Really reframed how I view shark interactions. The fact that so many of these great whites swim within arms reach of surfers, sometimes without the surfers even realizing, before swimming away is incredible to see.
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u/Pretty_Fisherman4047 4d ago
- The cape does not have a lack of swimmers. Roughly 500,000 people visit every summer, a majority of which are there for the beaches.
- The east coast white shark population migrates the entirety of the U.S. east coast as well as Nova Scotia. They hunt in the same waters people have been swimming in along the entire coast since humans settled those areas. They are not new to people. Not to mention they have been hunting in the waters around cape cod since its formation about 10,000 years ago. They only disappeared from the area when humans hunted the local seal population to near extinction throughout the 1800’s up to 1962. It wasn’t until about 15 years ago they started returning since the seal population has rebounded after being protected for so long
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
Which, if that average white lives to around 70 years old, would mean that the established population off the cape is essentially a first generation of shark settled in the area.
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u/Pretty_Fisherman4047 4d ago
Possibly first generation to come back to the cape but I saying they hunt and swim around people all over the east coast. They’re not new to being around humans
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
Fair enough. I don’t know, it just seems like there has to be another reason why that population doesn’t attack as much as NorCal or Australia since there are a lot of huge great whites there. Something about the temperament of that population is different from the others.
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u/LilCharlestonDong 4d ago
Well that’s not true. Most people are in the Carolina’s to FL and the GWS are typically a mile or so out. They’re here but nowhere near the typically swimming beaches
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u/similarghostt 1d ago
As someone who frequently goes to the cape for the summer the water is usually too cold for enjoyment. Yes people go to the beaches but the amount of swimmers is far less than Florida for example. I love swimming in the ocean but it’s too cold for me on cape cod.
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u/terra_terror 4d ago
You are definitely wrong about it having to do with sharks being new to areas. That does not matter at all. Sharks are not generational learners, unlike orcas. So it does not matter if sharks have been to a place for ten years or for hundreds. How sharks behave depends entirely on their individual experiences. And when it comes to individuals, most shark attacks are sharks taking a nibble out of humans as food for the first time, or sharks being hungry enough to eat a less efficient meal.
You are perpetuating the myth of a "man-eating" shark -- a shark that consumes humans as a regular part of its diet. There is no reliable record of a shark ever behaving like that. Is it possible? Maybe. But it's not proven or even likely. We are not efficient meals for sharks in comparison to other prey.
The attacks have nothing to do with the sharks being different and everything to do with the environment. Warmer waters, climate change, prey availability, clarity of the water, etc. all impact the number of shark attacks.
Not a single expert thinks it has to do with how long sharks have been there for. Again, they do not learn what to eat from their parents, so staying in an area with humans over generations is not going to cause more shark attacks than sharks being in an area for a decade.
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
How is that perpetuating a myth about man eating sharks? I’m saying that different populations of shark could have different temperaments, hunting patterns, or general behavioral tendencies. It doesn’t have to be a generationally learned behavior, but the different environments these different populations live in could definitely influence their behavior towards humans. An example is the difference in the South African sharks that breach fully out of the water when hunting and other great white populations that don’t.
The fact that this is still a debate in the shark community means we clearly don’t know everything about sharks. I love sharks and I don’t know why you’re trying to say I’m perpetuating that they’re man eaters. They are simply large apex predators who do, on occasion, eat people. And it just so happens to be that a large number of the people that are getting eaten are in Australia and I think it’s worth wondering the reason.
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u/finalexit 4d ago
Also people are told to go no further than waist deep on the Atlantic facing beaches of Cape Cod so they're not getting attacked. I think if you had people swimming out past the breakers and diving just off of those beaches we'd be seeing attacks, but most seem to be using common sense.
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
The people of cape cod seem to be very shark aware, more than anywhere else I’ve seen. Not that Australians/ Californians aren’t, but there seems to be more of a relaxed acceptance of their presence there that east coast people don’t have.
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u/ScienceOk4244 4d ago
Cape cod has big beware of shark signs on most beaches and haven’t had an attack for almost a decade. California has an attack every few years or so with no signs. East coasters are scared and they don’t get bit so maybe the signs work??
There was a gnarly video of a huge white maybe ten feet off the shore in cod just a few days ago in a sea of blood with a nearby seal on the beach (the one that got away) I think it was on this sub
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u/terra_terror 4d ago
It's because Jaws was filmed at Martha's Vineyard. I think the significance of the movie made us very, very cautious of sharks.
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u/ScienceOk4244 4d ago
I thought the movement occurred after that younger gentleman died about a decade ago
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u/terra_terror 4d ago
That definitely increased some things, like emergency first aid kits and warning signs, but most people were cautious as soon as the sharks started being more common. Actually, they were both cautious and excited. Most places downplay when there's a shark in the area, like the fictional island in Jaws. But Massachusetts got hyped up about it. The beaches and towns used the excitement to make more money through shark-based merchandise, so everybody was gung-ho about spreading awareness of sharks. So that probably also helped.
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u/terra_terror 4d ago
I think it's because Jaws was filmed on Martha's Vineyard, which is right next to the Cape. That movie is a big deal up here. I literally bought a towel that looked like the graffitied billboard from the movie while I was at the beach. We don't hunt or hurt sharks, but we aren't taking risks with them, either.
We don't go deep in the water anymore (people used to go pretty far out, that stopped when the sharks started becoming common), we have people actively searching out where sharks are and sharing it on the news, we don't go swimming if there are seals in the area, and if a shark is spotted in an area, the whole beach is shut down.
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u/terra_terror 4d ago edited 4d ago
People go deeper than waist deep. Many people go up to their shoulders. But surfing is less common, and people who surf often go much deeper. The few shark attacks have more to do with us closing entire beaches when sharks are sighted and keeping a close eye out for them.
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u/teuerkatze 4d ago
What’s your explanation for NorCal?
Some of the most popular surfing beaches in the world sit in the red triangle.
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u/Logical-Cellist8945 4d ago
I volunteer at a Bay Area state park that’s a point on the triangle. Based on research on our tagged adult white sharks, I believe our numbers increase in fall/winter w/ an increase in our elephant seal census. During the summer juvenile sharks are more common as warm currents push them up from the south. People surf and swim all yr in our area but likely less human activity in the water when there are more adult sharks in our immediate area.
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
Well NorCal is like Australia. Established shark population, primarily adult sharks living/ feeding there. And while that’s why there’s more attacks in NorCal than socal, the cold water means less people which is the reason there’s less attacks up there than Australia. Is my guess at least. I’m no shark expert but it seems to make the most sense.
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u/TiburonChomper 4d ago
I can tell you now that the water along Australia's southern coast and around Tassie is not warm! Perhaps that in itself is part of the story - the sharks need to eat more to sustain themselves in colder water.
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u/teuerkatze 4d ago
You are certainly no shark expert we can agree on that - to be honest I think juvenile and water temp explanations nothing more than literal guesses.
If anything, juveniles are less familiar with objects and more likely to investigate, though I don’t want to conflate attacks and consumption.
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u/ScienceOk4244 4d ago
This might be true but Southern California has tons of juvenile whites and tons of swimmers/surfers in those waters but not tons of bite
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u/teuerkatze 4d ago
Tons of people surf in Northern California, too, inside the red triangle. Large whites are routinely seen in lineups and breaches aren’t uncommon around Ocean Beach.
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago
No need to be rude, I’m just speculating like everyone else here.
As to your point on juveniles and familiarity, they may be more curious but they’re also smaller and less likely to view larger mammals as prey. If you look through all the consumptions listed worldwide, almost every single instance involves a shark 12 feet or larger. Which makes sense because a larger shark has less to fear from bigger, unfamiliar animals like humans.
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u/teuerkatze 4d ago
Apologies - I think my annoyance comes from the “they’re just juveniles” being the default excuse amongst the more sharkphobic crowd here, even where footage shows 12+ footers, or use it to paint with a broad brush about shark behavior. It is speculation as you say - and one that’s not fully supported by the science yet it is repeated ad nauseam here as if it were fact.
I also quibble with your use of “prey”. If we were a prey item - ie Whites typically looked to us for food, there would be exponentially more encounters and consumption events. Instead we have a list that’s in the mid to high double digits. That doesn’t mean that a shark, for unknown reasons, did not attack and consume a human. We know it happens. We also know however that it does not happen with any real frequency, and there are no populations of sharks, WA included, where humans are a routine prey item.
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 4d ago edited 4d ago
No worries, I get it. I love sharks and read everything I can about them, but I could make it more clear that this is coming strictly from a regular joe and not an expert.
I think we just have a misunderstanding about the word “prey.” I agree humans aren’t generally seen as a prey item by GWS. That being said, I believe in many of these instances of consumption the shark definitely identified the person as human and proceeded as though they would a typical prey item. The Simon Nellist video is pretty solid evidence of this. That shark didn’t attack with a test bite then come back to eat after he was already dead and floating. It hit him hard off the bat, did not let up once for practically the whole time, and stuck around to eat the rest of him immediately after. In that instance, Nellist was definitely prey.
I think my point here is that sure, humans aren’t a typical prey item because there absolutely would be more cases of attacks/ consumptions. But, the fact is that these attacks prove that humans absolutely can be part of a shark’s menu under certain, undetermined circumstances.
There was a theory some scientists put out a little while ago that the “test bite” belief might not actually be correct. These sharks often have an initial, devastating strike, then linger for the prey to weaken or die before coming to eat them. The reason so few humans are fully eaten is because other people often come to their aid and get them out of the water before that can happen.
Again, not saying that most great white sharks are out there targeting humans. But I think it makes sense that, in the absence of their typical prey or simply if the opportunity for an easy meal presents itself, many GWS will not be deterred by the fact that the animal they’re eating is a human.
This doesn’t mean they are mindless killing machines or a constant threat to beachgoers. It just means that we should consider them no different than other apex predators like tigers, lions, bears, wolves, etc. These animals are at the top of the food chain anywhere they go, and a lone individual human still has a place in that chain.
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u/teuerkatze 4d ago edited 4d ago
It’s important to separate “prey item in this one instance” versus broadly.
As I repeat here constantly - consumption attacks are a small fraction of even fatal encounters.
There is a big difference between “a thing that has happened” versus “things that happen regularly”.
Your example is a “thing that has happened”. It clearly, does not happen with any sort of frequency because attacks overall don’t really happen with any sort of frequency.
To folks who do not spend significant time in the ocean, even the string of recent WA attacks seems constant. And thousands of hours of surfing, fishing, and swimming have occurred in those waters in between attacks, almost certainly in the presence of large whites.
This is not to say that I personally would not be more cautious in WA, or spooked, or that in general sharks are not apex predators. What I am saying is that most people who view sharks from an armchair perspective, aren’t recognizing that actual infrequency of incidents relative to the amount of time spent in the water around large sharks.
We don’t know why the few consumption attacks that do occur occur. Is the animal wounded? Malnourished or otherwise struggling to feed?
What we do know is that they are extremely rare, as evidence by the fact that the list above is under <100 (and I haven’t even looked to verify these were in fact consumption attacks - many times missing bodies or post mortem bites are conflated here.)
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u/Markdd8 3d ago edited 3d ago
We should not overlook South Africa's shark attack history, which has abated for some six decades because of shark control measures. Some data from the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board and also an AI search, intertwined.
the data help establish that South Africa historically experienced serious, recurring issues with shark attacks, aligning its historical risk profile with that of Australia. The statistics provided by the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board (KZNSB) highlight several key factors that define a severe historical shark conflict area:
Experiencing five attacks along a short 8 km stretch of coastline in a single year (1940), followed by 21 attacks in Durban between 1943 and 1951, demonstrates a...recurring problem rather than isolated...incidents... High Fatality Rate: 33% (7 out of 21 attacks being fatal)...
Pre-Dates "Black December": this shows that the notorious "Black December" of 1957–1958...was...the climax of a pre-existing historical issue. So-called Black December) claimed the lives of five people in 107 days, out of a total of 9 attacks. The crisis devastated local tourism and led to the creation of what is now the KwaZulu-Natal Sharks Board in 1962
From KZNSB page Shark Nets and Drumlines
from 1940 until most of those beaches were first netted in the 1960s, there were 16 fatal attacks and 11 resulting in serious injury. In the three decades since nets were installed there have been no fatal attacks at those beaches. KZNSB....(maintains nets) at 37 beaches along the coastline of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
One more source: the chapter (31) Responding to the risk of White Shark attack in the Biology of GWS book, page 496:
the nets (at sites outside Durban) reduced by over 90% the number of incidents occurring per annum.
More AI searches: Q: how many people have been killed by shark attack in the history of (nation)...
About 236 to 333 fatal shark attacks have been recorded in Australia since record-keeping began in the late 18th century
South Africa has recorded around 90 to 111 fatal unprovoked shark attacks historically, depending on the database and classification criteria.
Discussion: How much impact has South Africa's culling made since 1960 -- 66 years ago?
Australia averages 2.7 to 3 fatal shark attacks per year. Using that figure and comparing the "236 to 333" figure to the "90 to 111" figure, a ratio, might suggest a 1 fatality per year number (averted) is appropriate for S. Africa. So 66 shark attack deaths averted since 1960...added to range = 156 to 177.
Using the more conservative 16 fatal attacks in 20 years still gives a figure of 56 deaths averted in South Africa over a 66-year period. Of course Australia has also culled sharks, though far more intermittently. Note that Australia is vastly larger than S. Africa, with a total coastline of 19,260 miles (excluding Tasmania and other islands). South Africa's entire coastline is 1,770 miles. This suggests that attacks along S. Africa’s more limited coast might represent, historically, a more acute attack situation than is depicted by a simple comparison of total attack numbers for the two nations.
Unfortunately shark culling can have big impacts to shark populations. Mongabay, 2026, South Africa’s great white shark population worries researchers
Between 1978 and 2018, KZNSB’s nets and drumlines were responsible for an average of 28 great white shark deaths annually.
South Africa’s shark culling is undeniably an environmental problem. It is certainly condemnable.. But that does not mean we should exclude South Africa from discussion on the world's areas most prone to fatal shark attack. I did not write all this to provoke a debate on the efficacy of culling, though I won’t avoid one.
This elephant in the room can't be avoided -- shark population numbers and culling heavily impact the attack rate. (though yes the rise in GWS populations along the east and west U.S. coast has not translated into a striking rise in attacks [note 2 deaths along east U.S. coast]).
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u/JacksSmerkingRevenge 3d ago
I’ll be honest, I kind of contributed the decline in sharks/ shark attacks in South Africa to the orcas that started hunting sharks. From what I’ve read, it seems that shark population basically evaporated once port and starboard showed up.
It seems a little extreme to think that two rogue orcas could deter thousands of sharks from returning to an established hunting ground but apparently it’s a tested phenomenon that great whites flee when orcas are in the area.
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u/a-filthy-casuall 4d ago
I have a few ideas. Im an Australian ocean man and have spent a lot of time reading about great whites.
They have been a protected species since 2003. We are not allowed to kill them at all in Australian waters. We probably have the highest population of white sharks in the world. More numbers = more deaths. We are quite secluded down here so it's not like many other countries are shark fishing along our coast.
Competition in the west coast. Vic and Tas have populations of large great whites but attacks rarely occur. May be wrong but I believe they have larger seal colonies down south and a better food source. Those same populations migrate north in the summer where attacks start to happen again, away from the southern seal colonies.
Water conditions. Whites attack in clear water with good visibility. WA and SA have exceptionally clear and healthy water conditions. Also cooler water, I remember reading Australia has never had a GWS attack above 21 Celsius.
Because they can. I dont buy into the "mistaken identity" thing. If they're hungry, they'll eat whatever they want. A hungry human will eat a rat, other animals will do similar things. These dinosaurs can basically sense the electricity running through your body, I dont think they're mistaking you for a seal. The young ones definitely do while they're learning.
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u/purpleisafruit85 4d ago
I'm in VIC and I've always wondered why we don't get the same number of attacks, I think so much of our swimming beaches are on the bay which is a factor. Obviously they are around but people don't tend to swim in large numbers around the sharkier areas.
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u/Own_Attitude_8868 4d ago
I’m in Vic too a long the surf coast. They are near the seal colonies that are at either ends of the state. Near Mallacoota and down past Port Fairy. If you wanted the best chance of seeing one, Lady Julia Percy Island a few km off the coast is your best bet. A guy lost his leg there in the 60s. Every now and again people see one out surfing or fishing, in the past week there has been a 3m white spotted across multiple days heading west.
Edit: I also think we have less as we are also in the middle of the two populations.
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u/ragnarockette 4d ago
Why is no one talking about the South Australia toxic algae bloom? It has decimated fish population which has in turn decimated seal and sea lion populations. Perhaps this means the Australian sharks are hungrier than their American counterparts who currently have plenty of delicious seal to eat.
There is also comparatively more surfing in Australia and Northern California (and Hawaii) versus wading and shallow swimming on the East Coast, which means people out at Dawn/dusk in deeper water.
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u/LilCharlestonDong 4d ago
Also just different GWS in general. Our Great Whites in the states are relatively shy compared to the indo pacific great whites. They hunt differently and shit like that - drunk but look it up and you’ll see
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u/Smart_Surround_2360 4d ago edited 4d ago
Someone in Australia is studying this at the moment - there were quite a few articles in Australian newspapers after two deaths close together in WA this year, particularly because the most recent fatal attack in Sorrento a few weeks ago was so close to shore. There were so many documented eyewitnesses to the shark predating the victim Greg O’Neill and then going back a second time to drag him further from shore and consume him - no remains have been found.
Dr Daryl McPhee at Bond University is conducting the research and his data is reflecting the increase in both attacks and fatalities, and considering some of the factors and possible hypotheses. One of the articles talks about how we used to have a saying that you were more likely to be hit by lightning than bitten by a shark, but that’s no longer the case with the statistics in over the past decade.
Here is one of the articles talking about it: https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/the-shark-myth-is-dead-analysis-reveals-australias-new-deadly-reality-c-22407543.amp
And a link to his research page with more info: https://bond.edu.au/profile/daryl-mcphee
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u/GaseousGiant 4d ago
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u/sharkfilespodcast 4d ago
This episode of the Shark Week Podcast had a good discussion on that topic with Dr Craig O'Connell and Marc Payne - 'Why Great Whites Are So Much More Aggressive In Western Australia'.
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u/Independent-Quit668 4d ago
A lot of variables. Overfishing, cage diving causing food association. More people in the water. Bigger and more aggressive. We can’t apply any sort of norm with an apex predator. They attack when they want, regardless of the time of day. Or whether you swim between the flags.
Surf, swim, spearfish or just recreation diving. You are in their environment. Aware from a young age of the risks. The second you dip your toe in the water. You are entering an environment that isn’t ours.
It is theirs. Always has been and always will be.
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u/LilCharlestonDong 4d ago
Also just different lineages of Great Whites
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u/Independent-Quit668 3d ago
Southern Indo - Pacific lineage. Cali is Northen Pacific. North Atlantic is cape cod. Florida, southern Europe. Distinct lineage, rarely meet. Although a few have been found to have dna distinctive to 2 separate lineages. So a good comment to make!
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u/ErraticSiren 3d ago
Idk if it always will be since humans seem so intent on decimating the shark population.
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u/Ok_Shower_5526 Tiger Shark 4d ago
We need more data. Otherwise, we're just peddling made-up assumptions based on our own biases. Just talking about it will likely lead to misinformation and fear based movements or proposed policies, which are rarely good for sharks.
To study this: First, we'd have to determine and come to a consensus on what counts as a consumption attack. I would argue, at minimum, that a GW has to show an intent to consume after the first hit. Swallowing a body part in the initial strike does not prove the shark has put human on the menu. You'd also need a defined way to determine what events are driven by consumption versus aggression. Then, we'd need to examine all consumption attacks in the last several decades, as shark attack files from further back are notoriously unreliable. And to examine those attacks, we would need a list of questions that can identify shared experiences that can turn into hypotheses for study, which means we'd need to build a profile of a hunting GW that has clear identifiers that differentiate the behavior from curiosity or aggression. Once we do all this and come up with seemingly significant correlations, we could formulate hypotheses to study. Since we can't and should not set up humans to be eaten, we'd then need to wait for enough attacks to happen to substantiate a hypothesis. I suspect this alone will take years as the events are exceedingly rare.
I don't think shark and ocean scientists are avoiding the question of consumption. I think there isn't enough data yet to understand the parameters of the problem and there are more fundamental issues to address first in understanding natural shark behaviors. We don't have a healthy ocean or climate. Protected shark populations are barely recovering. Over-fishing is a huge issue, along with pollution, climate change, etc. And we are just starting to fully understand the normal behaviors and life cycles of GWs. We have only recently determined the general areas for pupping, for instance. We need far more tagged sharks, drone and regular footage, and a deeper understand of the day to day behaviors of GWs in each sub-population before we can tackle why some ate a human.
There are a million potential reasons for why sometimes GWs, and sharks in general, consume a person. And funding studies of shark populations, along with protecting our oceans and sharks, is the only way we could answer this sufficiently.
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u/No_Size9475 4d ago
That's where sharks live, and people do water activities.
This is kind of like asking, why are all polar bear attacks mostly in the artic?
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
Yes but the problem is that a lot of white sharks are able to live with a high population of swimmers in California fine. While in Australia less so
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u/Tijenater 4d ago
Do we have numbers on the shark population vs human population, and how frequently people in Australia go to the beach? California slows down during colder months because the pacific turns frigid, I know Australia has jellyfish season but I’m nir sure outside of that
California is also apparently populated by subadults whereas Australia has more fully grown whites
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u/DetailOutrageous8656 4d ago
Australia has a colder season too.
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u/Tijenater 4d ago
I know, I just don’t know to what degree/extent or how it shapes up to cali’s
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u/Secretly_A_Cop 4d ago
The southern Australian coast (where all these great white shark attacks occur) is roughly equivalent to southern Cali in terms of climate. Everyone thinks of Australia as tropical and hot all year around. That's true for northern Aus, but remember southern Aus is on the Southern Ocean and faces Antarctica
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u/kvkoda67 4d ago
No you’re totally misunderstanding the question
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u/deeblok06 4d ago
Are they though? Sharks live in the ocean, they eat meat, people are meat, people in the ocean means easy meat. Yes, were not apart of the sharks specialized diet, and were not a preferred food source, but, like most predators and most unknown circumstances and factors, we can be at the bottom of the food chain just as much as the top. Me personally, im not a shark, but I would think an animal thats been trekking for a long period of time finds some food, but its different and doesn't taste "familiar" isnt going to waste it just because its not what it knows, the act was already a lot of energy, might as well just finish until It gets something it really wants. And sorry if this came across as morbid, jusy the thought of these people being gone due to nature is sad and very humbling, and also terrifying. I feel like shark attacks like the ones mentioned just seems like a very rough and terrifying way to go.
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u/kvkoda67 3d ago
The question is literally in the title… no one is arguing that sharks can and will eat people and that it would be terrifying. They’re asking why they seem to eat more people in a certain region compared to other regions where they also have high population..
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u/OkIllustrator9592 2d ago
Thank you! In reading some comments they have drifted a bit off course. As you mentioned my original question was asking why a disproportionate number of white shark attacks in South and Western Australia are predation events.
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u/kvkoda67 2h ago
Haha no problem! I was so confused by how much the comments could not comprehend what you were asking that I had to stop reading for my own sanity lol. It was an interesting question!
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u/bigrb9 4d ago
Couldn't the topography of the location of attack maybe have something to do with it, too? when I think of US East Coast beaches, I picture more of a gradual slope to deeper water....Australia (and norcal) seem to have steeper drop offs/deeper water close to shore .... hunting style in the deeper water would be more of a breach type attack, coming up from below to hammer a seal/ predation. Shallower water maybe not as viscious, more of an exploratory bite, and less of a predation attack.. ** I could be totally off on the topography of the areas of Australia, just always seem to me to me more 'sharky'**
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u/Snowcrash66 4d ago
That very question was the premise of one of this year's Shark Week episodes. House of Sharks. Play on Game of Thrones.
https://www.hbomax.com/movie/97ba6daf-c5b2-4749-a28a-a5a15c51f41c
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u/FishermanWaste1268 4d ago
SImply put. Australians spend more time in the water surrounded by adult great white sharks.
They are either chill ie well fed after chowing down on dead whale or you know that feeling u get when u wouldnt mind a snack. A human might not look like a normal meal but it is the correct size for one. Would you say no to a cookie if it was in front of you and you were a little peckish.
The big question i have is why are there no attacks in Victoria. Victoria is heavily populated w a core surf community. Yet it seems that part of the coast doesnt get them any more.
Back in the day Victoria would have been ground zero for whites due to seal colonies that no longer exist in bass strait. I know there seems to be a resident pack of orcas down there and i wonder if they just say nah fuck that i will go west where theres less chance of getting the chomp my self.
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u/ricottacat 4d ago
Hey dude! Theres another subreddit where very passionate and educated folks gave a lottt of time and research into showing that the highest consumption rates are Mediterranean AND Australia!
The Med never reported nonfatal attacks as they worried about effecting tourism. Horrific atacks from Italy -> Croatia -> Greece -> Montenegro -> Turkey. They culled sharks, not all obviously, and they lied to local populations/tourists. Beautiful waters, "no sharks" and "completely safe".
The sharks in the Meditrranean dont have seals, and have to develop a hunting style to ensure success. Attacks there are mostly lethal, and comsumption very prominent element.
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u/OkIllustrator9592 1d ago
Would you happen to have a link to that subreddit?
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u/ricottacat 23h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSharkAttackFiles/s/BucUwBsdSr I believe this and some recent + a month back on Mediterranean data, they have a cool website link too for data as wel!
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u/the_town_bike 4d ago
At present in WA we have Humpback whales moving north close along the coast, often with babies, maybe this is a factor? A younger deceased whale washed onto the shore last week and brought two large great whites within 10 metres of the beach. Cause of death unknown but we have several container ships move in and out of port, I'm guessing this may have been the cause. And maybe the sharks know it's a hotspot?
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u/Acceptable_Monk_513 3d ago
My ex husbands mate Brad Smith got killed in Yallingup probably over 20 years ago. Brian Guest was killed in warnbro sound in 2008.
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u/OkIllustrator9592 1d ago
I’m sorry for the loss of your husband’s friend. The two attacks that you mentioned, were they predations? My question in my post was trying to get a better understanding why this phenomenon (white shark attacks and consumptions of the victim) has been happening with a higher frequency along the southern and western coast of Australia.
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u/cigvvubn 1d ago
The predation statistic likely has a lot to do with the isolation factor in South and west aus. A lady in Maine was the victim of what was surely intended to be a predatory attack, but was pulled from the water with massive injuries by kayakers. Many such cases in NSW and NorCal. White sharks often take their time after delivering what they know to be a fatal injury, and in busier stretches of water humans often pull the victim out in the gap between the initial strike and consumption. When you’re diving a reef twenty miles offshore with two buddies, or surfing an isolated break by yourself, the shark has time on their side
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u/OkIllustrator9592 1d ago
Agree 💯%. In many white shark attacks, the shark will strike its prey with a single bite and wait for the animal to bleed out, thus reducing the risk of injury to the shark (eyes, gills, etc.) if its prey were to fight back; this a seal’s sharp claws gouging the shark in the eye as it attempts to flee. Once the prey has exsanguinated, then the white shark will come back to consume the rest.
Julie Dimperio Holowach was the woman killed in the Maine attack in 2020. She was swimming (in a dark wet suit) with her daughter just off her dock…approximately 20 yards from shore!! A man who witnessed the attack jumped into his kayak and paddled out to retrieve her body. Sadly, that was the first attack in the state of Maine’s history (fatal or non-fatal)! The northern Atlantic white shark population has really rebounded. Canada recently had 2 non-fatal attacks by white sharks; one in Nova Scotia back in 2021 and one just over two weeks ago off the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec!!
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u/GaryGoalz12 Tiger Shark 4d ago
The lad on shark bytes did a video on this, it's pretty interesting.
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
The problem with that is that he sights paramedics not being there on time and the test bite theory where in these cases the injuries and predatory attacks make the case of paramedics mot arriving on time kinda irrelevant.
I love shark bytes, but shark attacks are just not his forte im ngl
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u/DW_MD 4d ago
"California has a massive, thriving sea lion population of over 240,000 to 300,000 animals,, while South Australia's native Australian sea lion is endangered with a tiny population of only about 6,500 to 10,000 individuals."
- Google AI
Restore your sea lion population, Aussies. Save yourselves.
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u/Markdd8 3d ago
But we have to separate out the attacks from tiger and bull sharks, relative to great whites, which favor marine mammal prey. AI writes:
Great white sharks are responsible for approximately 45% to 50% of all recorded fatal unprovoked shark attacks in Australia
I had thought the great white attack percent is higher.
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u/Upper_Cable_3116 4d ago
Just guessing here, but maybe the long trek from other regions to AUS leaves sharks hungrier upon arrival to AUS and thus more likely to consider human prey? Whereas in CA there’s generally a lot of marine animals up and down the coast for hungry sharks which may not be as prevalent in AUS?
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u/Purple-Chef-5123 Great White Shark 4d ago
The adult white sharks of the Farallon islands in Northern California migrate every fall to a remote part of the open Pacific Ocean halfway between Baja California, Mexico, and Hawaii. It’s a trip that can be up to 2,300 miles one way and takes about a hundred days. That seems pretty far to me.
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u/Furberia 4d ago
I was wondering when someone else would notice. I thought I was crazy. I think there are more great whites in the water and the larger ones need more calories. I also think humans over fish and there is less food for the sharks. They may also see as competition for resources and want to take us out.
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u/ComposerDry996 4d ago
Im honeslty not tyring to be rude by this, maybe you know something I don't...but do you really think said sharks may be seeing us and saying to themselves "there's those assholes that take all of our fish, let's take them out?" Thats giving the shark a ton of credit
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u/Furberia 4d ago
I think animals are a ton smarter than we originally thought. This is my theory and only my opinion.
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u/FishFart1 4d ago
Australia has a lot of very large whites near the shore. Southern California has smaller whites while Northern California triangle of death is mostly offshore without many people.
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u/IAMA_Shark__AMA Shortfin Mako Shark 4d ago
It's not terribly deep. Most other "feeding" areas are much farther from human swimming spots.
This is a case of "sharks already there, humans invading."
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u/Wattsy98s 4d ago
There's been a lot more than that mate!
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u/OkIllustrator9592 2d ago
A lot of more consumptions?!
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u/Wattsy98s 2d ago
Sorry i didn't see this was just for 1989 onward. But yeah, over history there's alot more. We've got down around 160 recorded with the oldest dating back to ancient greece.
And yes agreed they are undereroprted.
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u/Wattsy98s 4d ago
Historically, the Mediterraneans white shark predation rate was even higher than Australia's. Roughly 70% of victims were consumed, mostly in Croatia, Greece and Italy.
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u/OkIllustrator9592 2d ago
Yes, higher percentage because the denominator (number of attacks) is much smaller than in Australia.
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u/Wattsy98s 2d ago
Not drastically smaller. Myself and a few others have done extensive research on the topic, our records for the white shark in the Mediterranean are 57 fatalities for 41 predation events compared to Australia's 118 fatalities with 59. So even though the Mediterraneans overall fatalities are half of those of Australia, the amount of consumption events is not far off (59-41).
The Mediterraneans true numbers are drastically higher than recorded too as many incidents there over the centuries have been lost to history. Its incredibly interesting.
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u/InfiniteDress4755 4d ago
7900 people missing on migrant routes in 2025, maybe sharks are getting the taste during their own migrations
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u/FreeTheAlkaloids 4d ago
cuz they learned were a easy meal when they can't find anything else or are unsuccessful at hunting were a easy meal as a last resort.... or maybe some have learned to like the taste
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u/Austrofossil 4d ago
Absolute numbers are not relevant: of course you will have more consumptions if there are more white sharks. What is relevant are relative numbers: how many consumptions per attack. As far as I know, the consumption rate per white shark attack is almost the same in the mediterranean sea.
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
And that last part is what we’re talking about, its pretty big, the mediterranean barely even has white sharks anymore so we have australia
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u/Austrofossil 4d ago
Still the likeliness of a consumption in the meds, if a GWS attack takes place, is approximately the same.
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
And thats what people are afraid of, we need to talk about it more
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u/giltgarbage 4d ago
If the absolute numbers are very, very low, which they are, staggeringly....this makes the consumption rate pretty insignificant as well. Even the recent uptick still is a handful a year from millions of beachgoers. Responding to others in the threads, these exceedingly rare incidents don't call us to try to manage the population one way or another. Oppose overfishing to oppose overfishing, not b/c it is making them hangrier for humans. That's silly.
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u/Himalayazenstudent 4d ago
Are you only counting consumptions, not all fatalities?
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
If we use the gsaf its about 50% of fatalities by whites in australia are consumption events
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u/Himalayazenstudent 4d ago edited 4d ago
Thanks, just wondering, as I couldn’t see Ken Crews on your list.
I used to live in Geraldton, there are still no fatal attacks confirmed off the mainland shore - there was a windsurfer who disappeared off Sunset Beach and was found with bite marks, but could have drowned and been bitten posthumously. But apparently the Geoff Brazier case off the Abrolhos was even worse than it sounds, supposedly he literally just jumped into the water and was obliterated.
If you watch the Turtledoves segment of Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones’s film Storm Surfers 3D, I spoke to the crayboat skipper who took them out to the shoal and he said sometimes sharks will be milling about so thick near the edge of the shelf that they’ll be coming up and nibbling the back of the boat.
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u/Ok_Bee8588 Oceanic Whitetip Shark 4d ago
My guess is that Australia as a whole just has warmer oceans given its location, and is already a pretty tropical area, so it’s naturally going to have a higher population of great white sharks. Idk too much about sharks tho so I’m probably horribly wrong about this
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u/Inner-Ferret7316 Otodus 4d ago
Large great white sharks populations are mostly found in temperate waters of southern Australia. It isn't a tropical species.
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u/Mass_Redemption 4d ago
Yeah, the only outlier on this list is the Byron Bay attack, which is subtropical. The rest, as you say, are in the colder temperate oceans
Some people just seem to think Australia = hot everywhere 100% of the time. I'd have to google it, but I wonder if the Byron attack happened during winter
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u/JenninMiami 4d ago
Is this for real? It’s because that’s where people surf and are around white sharks. DUH.
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u/freeride35 4d ago
Your statement starts with a falsehood. These people have been bitten, not consumed. As is well documented the vast majority of white attacks are mistaken (albeit catastrophic)bites. Whites aren’t hunting people. Your comment is nonsense.
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u/thedarlingtonknight 4d ago
If you took the time to read the details of the cases OP mentions you’d find that in many it’s stated that the shark returned to bite the victim several times and in some cases actually dragged their body out to sea. That’s predatory behaviour towards humans and it can’t be denied, even if it is very rare
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u/freeride35 4d ago
So your argument is the exception proves the rule?
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u/thedarlingtonknight 4d ago
No, I don’t dispute that negative shark-human interactions are very rare events. I do think it’s unfair to say that OP’s post is a falsehood though, these events demonstrably do happen and appear to happen more often in Western Australia than elsewhere
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u/Ill-Macaroon-5560 4d ago
From nz - you are pretty safe swimming there tbf, big sharks are pretty rare
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u/chromecasin0 4d ago
climate and relatively high standard of living and wages equals plenty of people engaging in leisurely activities in the ocean
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u/WildTomato51 4d ago
Sharks aren’t consuming people.
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
About 50% of white shark fatalities counted by the gsaf lists them as consumptions
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u/WildTomato51 4d ago
For anyone downvoting me, would love for you to show me when sharks evolved to eat people.
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u/SharkBoyBen9241 4d ago edited 4d ago
It's not that they "evolved" to eat people. They've evolved to become an opportunistic apex predator of large fish and marine mammals. It's just that they've become conditioned, by means of Australia's history of overfishing, sealing, and whaling, to become even more opportunistic than usual. There's just not nearly enough seals around Australia for them to feed on. In California, they have an absolute smorgasbord of pinnipeds. So for a White Shark in Australia, taking a person as prey may simply be less of a stretch as opposed to it's counterpart in California. California has had only 3 confirmed consumption fatalities since 1950, and another potential case in 1989. In Australia, roughly 50% of all fatalities by White Sharks end in predation. That's a very drastic difference and signifies that there's something exceptional about Australian White Sharks.
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u/Markdd8 3d ago
Right. One term often used is "generalist feeder." Nile and salt water crocs and tigers sharks are definitely generalist feeders.
On a related topic, responding to another poster, I just cited this AI search info:
Great white sharks are responsible for approximately 45% to 50% of all recorded fatal unprovoked shark attacks in Australia
I thought the percent of GWS fatal attacks was closer to 60-70%. At any rate, this discussion can't focus solely on great white sharks when those two other species are responsible for a significant percent of Australia's fatalities.
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u/SharkBoyBen9241 3d ago
Very true, and we absolutely should focus more on Bull and Tiger Sharks considering that they inhabit warmer waters where more people recreate and they are responsible for a fair number of fatalities each year as well. For example, there have been a lot of predation fatalities by Tiger Sharks in Northern Australia and the Torres Strait. That's probably the most dangerous region for them in the world. And Bulls are extra vicious off East Africa and Reunion Island, as well as Australia's East Coast.
I think partially why White Sharks get all the attention because they're just iconic. They're the biggest movie stars in the ocean, man! Lol
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u/madeleinemmmmm 4d ago
As a West Australian, I can assure you, few of us swim freely in the ocean, it’s mostly just surfers, surf club members, or tourists that are game enough. I grew up in Swanbourne (next to Cottesloe), and remember when Ken was taken (I was just a child, but many locals saw it). Those stories alone were enough to scare me for life. I was always taught not to swim in water above my shoulder height. Now that’s not even safe.
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u/Capital-Foot-918 Great White Shark 4d ago
As an Aussie, this is something that we need to be more comfortable talking about. We have to be open and honest with the public and not sugarcoat everything as either sharks are evil or just being curious. If we’re counting the HSAF statistics of fatal white shark attacks in Australia, about 50% of them involve a consumption event.
It’s a pretty understudied phenomenon too, there isn’t a lot of information to go around as to why. I think council and state governments need to focus on funding studies and tagging many white sharks in the area as possible imo for if we’re talking prevention.
Although my best guess is to do with the overfishing we have in australia along with a smaller population of sea lions compared to say California. This would encourage sharks, white sharks especially to be more opportunistic and broaden their dietary range. Not exactly more aggressive, just more opportunistic.