The Great Australia Shark Count

How many sharks are in the waters off of Australia? The definitive number will probably never be known but, based on a community shark count taking place there now, many of the toothsome fish call Oz home. Here's how the numbers stack up thus far:

Species                                    # Counted      
Wobbegong Shark                    903

Grey Nurse Shark                    733    

Port Jackson Shark                  519   

Grey Reef Shark                      498    

Whitetip Reef Shark                431   

Whalers (several species)       356    

Other                                       334    

Blacktip Reef Shark                 153    

Tiger Shark                               64    

Seven Gill Shark                        18    

Great White Shark                     13

And here are the Aussie state shark rankings:

State                                     # Counted    

New South Wales                   2720   

Queensland                           1506    

Western Australia                  181    

Victoria                                 77    

South Australia                     26    

Northern Territory                 9    

Tasmania                               2  

One of the take home messages is that if you want to see a shark in the wild, you'd do well to visit New South Wales. If you're reading this from Australia, or if a trip there is on your horizon, you can notify the authorities of shark sightings and actively participate in the ongoing count. You can do so by logging in right here.

In the meantime, check out the below video, which features some up close great white footage towards the middle, and an interview at the end with great white shark attack survivor Rodney Fox, who invented the shark cage featured in this clip.
    

Comments

[Jason Holmberg]

Hi Jennifer,

Great article! Just as a follow up question:

Are these sightings or actually identified individuals? For example, are all 903 wobbegong sharks individual animals, or are these just sightings, with individuals potentially sighted more than one time in the 903 records? For example, the ECOCEAN Library has over 5000 reported sightings, but 1240+ identified individuals identified one or more times from the 5000 records. When comparing betweens databases, it's important to distinguish between these concepts.

Thanks,
Jason Holmberg
ECOCEAN Whale Shark Photo-identification Library
http://www.whaleshark.org

[Jen Viegas]

Hi Jason,

You raise a good point. Potentially more than one person could spot and document the same shark, especially if it travels from one location to another. I think the AUF tries to keep duplicates to a minimum, but they might have crept into the data.

The Great Australia Shark Count project made the comparison between the databases, so I just credited the info to them. It'll be interesting, however, to see which organization winds up on top, in terms of shark sightings, by the end of the year. I guess that's more incentive for shark watchers to be on the lookout!

Thanks again for taking the time to write,
Jen