Fatal shark attacks make news, but 'dozens' of bites are not reported
The call comes as a 16-year-old boy remains in a serious condition in the Gold Coast University Hospital after he was mauled by what was believed to be a two-metre-long bull shark at Cabarita, on the New South Wales far north coast on Sunday.
Gold Coast-based shark researcher Dr Daryl McPhee said attacks were more frequent than people realised, because minor incidents were often not reported.
Mauling survivor Dave Pearson encouraged more surfers to report minor run-ins, to create a more accurate understanding of shark behaviour.
Authorities conceded that without diligent reporting of shark encounters, there was no way of knowing how often attacks occurred.
Dr McPhee, who is an associate professor of environmental science and Bond University, said he knew of minor attacks that went unrecorded.
"You can never work out exactly how many, because by definition they are unreported, but it certainly does occur," he said.
"They have happened in the ocean from divers poking or prodding something they shouldn't have poked or prodded, and then getting nipped and being a bit embarrassed by it."
A surfer was bitten in the Gold Coast's Tallebudgera Creek in September last year and took himself to hospital with arm injuries.
According to Queensland Health, five people have been treated for shark bites at Gold Coast hospitals in the past five years, but only two of them arrived by ambulance.
In that time, only three incidents across the region — including the deadly 2020 attacks at Greenmount and Kingscliff, as well as the recent close call at Cabarita — made headlines.
The Australian Shark-Incident Database (ASID) is the most comprehensive source of shark-bite information, and includes more than 1,200 cases dating back to 1791.
The database is run by the Taronga Conservation Society with Flinders University and the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries.
For an incident to be included in ASID, there must be an attempt by the shark to bite a person either in the water or on a small non-motorised craft like a surfboard or kayak.
Analysis of the data found the number of bites in Australia each year more than doubled between 2000 and 2020.
Marine biologist and ASID project lead Madeline Thiele said the leading hypothesis was that the increase was driven by human population growth, along with the popularity of surfing and diving.
Others believed the growth in shark numbers was to blame.
Some shark-attack victims said the official statistics failed to capture incidents where surfers were knocked off their boards or chased out of the ocean.
While such cases did not involve bites, survivors said the terrifying encounters should be recorded so authorities have a better understanding of shark behaviour.
Dave Pearson almost lost his arm to a bull shark 14 years ago at Crowdy Head, about an hour south of Port Macquarie.
He said his attack was almost identical to the one at Cabarita on Sunday.
Then aged 48, Mr Pearson was knocked off his surfboard close to shore, pulled under by his arm, and then followed by the shark after the encounter.
The quick thinking of other surfers who came to his aid and applied a tourniquet saved his arm.
He never goes to the beach without a first aid kit and hands out tourniquets to other surfers at his local break.
To help process the trauma, he founded Bite Club, a support network of shark attack survivors that now has 500 members worldwide.
They share a close bond and keep in touch regularly.
Mr Pearson said surfers and ocean swimmers were "certainly reporting a lot more sharks than we used to see".
But, he said, there were many reasons why surfers chose not to report coming face-to-face with sharks, including a desire to not scare others, or harm tourism in their town.
For a lot of people, however, the only way they could get back in the ocean was to forget the experience and pretend it never happened, he said.
"But people need to be made aware of the amount of sharks out there so we can prepare for it."
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