Australia’s Deep-Rooted Fear of Sharks Complicates Efforts to Protect Them

Australia’s Deep-Rooted Fear of Sharks Complicates Efforts to Protect Them

Few creatures trigger as much primal dread among beachgoers as the shark. Yet the numbers tell a different story: far more Australians drown at the beach each year than are killed by shark encounters. Still, sharks continue to occupy an outsized place in the nation’s collective imagination, a fear that stretches back through the continent’s long human history, from Aboriginal rock art depicting these ocean predators to unsettling encounters reco…