We need to learn how to live better with sharks

The terror lurking within most swimmers and surfers has been forced to the surface after four shark attacks around Sydney and south of Crescent Head within 48 hours.

Our enjoyment of the beach is being sorely tested, with a 12-year-old boy “fighting for his life” after being bitten at Nielsen Park on Sunday, while attacks on the northern beaches on Monday left a swimmer in his 20s in critical condition and an 11-year-old boy with a damaged surfboard. Then on Tuesday, a 39-year-old was hit surfing off Point Plomer.

The attacks followed the deaths of an international tourist at Kylies Beach on the NSW Mid North Coast in November and a Sydney surfer at Long Reef in September.

The challenge now is to avoid the kind of panic and recriminations that have sometimes followed shark attacks.

The latest spate of attacks is unusual, but not unknown.

In the 1930s, a spike in attacks off Sydney beaches saw 15 people mauled and 10 killed, and the panic led to the introduction of shark nets. The meshing program was successful but involved significant environmental cost, although the Minns government has kept it in place this summer.

Then, just over a decade ago, a 50-kilometre length of coast between Byron Bay and Evans Head in northern NSW was a horror stretch, with two people killed, three seriously mauled and several surfers bumped or their boards nipped. Mounting fears saw the tourist destination torn between public safety and economic reality, much like the town in the 1975 film Jaws.

That film fanned worldwide fear of white pointers but all the attacks since September have involved bull sharks (aka the requiem shark), an animal with the unique knack for being able to inhabit water that’s fresh, brackish or salty.

Various experts have warned that climate change is warming the water and expanding the range of bull sharks, making their stays in NSW generally, and Sydney specifically, much longer and increasing the risk of encounters. Additionally, the recent rain has turned Sydney Harbour and offshore waters into a dangerous stew.

The general population used to know that come summer, rain and sharks meant thinking twice before entering the water. To reduce the probability of the improbable they knew not to swim alone, avoid swimming at dawn and dusk, after heavy rainfall or in turbid water, because the tribal drum taught them that bull sharks bite people in the murky shadows.

However, there is a high-risk group of teenage boys and young men who never knew or long ago forgot to read the signs and stay behind the nets or out of the water altogether.

They may not have been deterred from entering dangerous waters, even if there were widespread warnings in place. But authorities should nonetheless redouble efforts to improve communications to minimise the dangers to those who take risks, while also warning the public, many of whom appear to have lost the knowledge of previous generations on how to live with sharks.

The message is simple: When the conditions are unsafe, just stay out of the water.

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