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Following five fatal attacks by sharks in the last 10 months, the Western Australian fisheries minister, Norman Moore, is now questioning whether great white sharks deserve their protected status.

Western Australia has also begun funding four research projects looking into the shark attacks.

Great white sharks have had protected status in Australia since 1999 and have been listed as a “vulnerable” species since 1996.

Ryan Kempster of Flinders University in South Australia dismisses the minister’s statement, saying that there is “absolutely no scientific evidence” that their protected status has contributed to the rise in shark attacks. He goes on to say, “Sharks mature slowly, taking up to 25 years until they are sexually mature, so any kind of abundance increase is going to be slow.”

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