A national assessment of the status of white sharks

Overview

This report provides an overview of the key findings on Australasian white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) abundance and population dynamics which have superseded the initial estimates in Hillary et al. (2018). Both the submitted paper and the updated work detailed herein constitute the first robust estimates of Australasian white shark abundance and demographic rates (survival and trend) ever undertaken, and employ a variety of cutting-edge methods and novel data from across the Australian/New Zealand range of the species. Importantly, these estimates do not rely on the highly uncertain historical catch data for this species. To our knowledge, no similar study has been conducted worldwide. The results and methods employed, represent a step-change in capacity to assess otherwise difficult to monitor species, such as white sharks.