Perth Attack: WA Issues First Shark Kill Order in a Decade

Western Australia has authorised fisheries officers to destroy a great white shark after a swimmer was killed at a popular Perth beach — the first order of its kind in the state in ten years.

Greg O'Neill, 63, was attacked while swimming close to shore at Sorrento Beach, in Perth's northern suburbs, at about 10:30am on Friday, Sept. 18, the ABC reported. Police said he had not been found in an air and sea search on Friday or in a shoreline search on Saturday morning. Beaches in the area remain closed.

Fisheries Minister Jackie Jarvis said she signed the catch-and-kill order after the animal was positively identified by water police and stayed in the area. "Given that the shark had been positively identified, remained in the vicinity following a fatal attack and was considered to pose an ongoing threat, I authorised fisheries officers to destroy the shark if it could be captured," she told reporters. "In making that decision, I considered the exceptional circumstances of the attack, the hazard posed by the shark, and the potential recovery of coronial evidence."

Catching it is another matter. Capture gear — a type of drum line normally used to tag sharks — was deployed on Friday, but the ABC reported that crews could not set it on Saturday because of unfavourable weather and choppy water. The shark swam away after being identified and, as of that reporting, had not been caught.

The order lands in the middle of a long-running argument about how Australia manages a species that is protected internationally. Jarvis was explicit that the decision was not a policy shift: "White sharks are protected internationally. This is not the return to the idea that we would cull all apex predators." Premier Roger Cook has rejected calls to bring back culls and baited drum lines as standing policy, and Jarvis said the state already has "one of the most comprehensive shark hazard mitigation strategies in the country" — tagging with acoustic receivers, nets at designated beaches, warning apps, sirens and subsidised personal deterrents.

The pressure behind that argument is the year itself. O'Neill's death was the third fatal shark attack in Western Australia in 2026, after Steven Mattaboni off Rottnest Island and Daniel Turpin near Albany, and the ABC counts it as the 24th in the state in 26 years. It has been a decade since the Perth metropolitan area recorded this many shark deaths in a single year. A separate, non-fatal attack on Sept. 14 left a surfer seriously injured at Glenfield Beach north of Geraldton; 1News reported he was in a stable condition at Geraldton Health Campus.

Scientists quoted by the ABC say warmer oceans are shifting shark migratory patterns, which may be contributing to the rise in encounters. What happens next depends on the weather: officers cannot act on the order until conditions allow the gear back in the water.