As Perth shark attack victim Ben Gerring continues to fight for his life, surfers, commercial fishers and scientists debate the merits of easing restrictions on killing the protected animals.
Responding to calls from Perth's commercial fishing sector to allow protected sharks to be caught and killed, marine scientist Jess Morris says a cull won't make the ocean safer.
"We would like more science to be involved in this matter and going out and just killing an endangered species really isn't doing anything for the environment and it's really not assisting ocean users to be safer in the water," Ms Morris told 6PR.
The Humane Society scientist also questioned whether the 4.2-metre shark caught and killed on drum lines on Wednesday was responsible for Tuesday's attack on Mr Gerring.
"The fact that the drum lines were deployed over 18 hours after the incident shows that it is very unlikely that the shark they captured was the shark responsible, white sharks can travel hundreds of kilometres in a day," she said.
Experienced commercial fisherman Peter Hammond said the government should consider allowing commercial fishermen to kill the few small white sharks they catch every season, rather than throw them back.
"I think the numbers have hugely come up and we've now got too many deaths, and if they're from great whites, I think we should be reducing the numbers," he told AAP.
Mr Hammond said the state government could also separately consider easing the commercial restrictions on smaller sharks that are not protected species along the metropolitan coast.
Mr Gerring, 29, was still in a critical condition on Friday, a Royal Perth Hospital spokeswoman said, as his family including his pregnant fiancee kept a bedside vigil.
His family said in a statement he was still too unstable to be operated on.
They also said he was afraid of sharks and would never have gone surfing if he had known of a Surf Lifesaving WA tweet warning that a large shark had been spotted in the area earlier that day.
He lost a leg in the attack while surfing near Mandurah, south of Perth.
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