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Western Australia's Shark Attack Causes | SharkFest


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[music playing]

NARRATOR: And while sharks have always been present along this massive shoreline, starting in 2010, they become a problem. More than 60 attacks in just 10 years, triple the number of incidents from the preceding decade—it's an unprecedented uptick. Shark attacks in Western Australia previously were rare. Now they're almost regular events.

NARRATOR: Not only that, the spike includes a horrifying 11 fatalities, earning this tourist haven a terrifying designation as Australia's deadliest coast. [dramatic music]

TREVOR WHYTE: The amount of vicious attacks—there's no question. It becomes talk of the town. People are scared to go back in the water.

NARRATOR: With residents demanding action, authorities put prevention measures in place, including aerial surveillance and beach enclosures. But the attacks just keep coming. So investigators take up the case in a bid to stop the bloodshed and keep it from recurring elsewhere.

BLAKE CHAPMAN: The more we can research into what's happening, then the more human fatalities and human trauma we're going to be able to prevent.

NARRATOR: So what's causing the sharks of Western Australia to suddenly go on a rampage? Shark expert Johann Gustafson believes that a crucial first step in solving this mystery is to identify the culprit. So he turns to a piece of evidence from the attack on Elyse.

NARRATOR: So here we have a fragment of tooth that was lodged within the victim.

NARRATOR: Gustafson thinks this tooth must belong to one of three species which are responsible for the majority of the attacks worldwide. The first is the tiger shark. [dubstep music]

NARRATOR: So here we have a tiger shark jaw. And we see on one side of the jaw, the blades are pointing to the left, where on the opposite side of the jaw, they're pointing in the opposite direction.

NARRATOR: This allows tigers to rip their prey from both sides of their teeth as they shake their heads back and forth. A second likely culprit is the bull shark. [dubstep music]

JOHANN GUSTAFSON: So with our bull shark, we have here a completely different shape of tooth. Quite pointed, serration is quite sharp.

NARRATOR: The bull shark's powerful pointed teeth enable it to slice through its victim in one quick lethal motion. But Gustafson believes the shape of the tooth from Elyse's wound indicates a different predator.

JOHANN GUSTAFSON: With this tooth fragment, it's perfectly triangular. And it's quite serrated on both sides. Without doubt, I can conclude this came from a white shark. [electronic music]

NARRATOR: Great whites are the largest predatory fish on the planet. They use their powerful tails to propel them through the water at upwards of 25 miles per hour, often striking their prey from below. But this identification isn't limited to Elyse's attacker. Of the more than 60 attacks where the species is known, the majority of culprits are white sharks.

NARRATOR: So what's causing great whites here to act so strangely? And could it be indicative of a behavioral shift happening across the globe? Perhaps the answer relates to a booming industry that's centered around this iconic species, one that occurs in several locations but all began down under—cage diving.

Shark expert Dr. Dan Huber explains.

DAN HUBER: The way cage diving operations work is that boats use chum to try and attract sharks to the area. People then get into cages, which are submerged in the water, to get much, much closer to very dangerous sharks than they would otherwise be able to.

NARRATOR: Cage diving has been a fixture of Australian tourism for decades. But around 2010, something changed.

DAN HUBER: In 2010, when the spike in shark attacks began, the number of days that chumming occurred on the water had doubled compared to the previous year.

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