The common denominator between every recorded fatal Western Australia shark attack is the water temperature, but it's not being discussed, says a shark policy expert.
As the WA government's shark safety policies are being questioned after two deadly attacks in under a week, University of Sydney public policy lecturer Chris Neff said every deadly attack in WA had occurred in temperatures ranging between 18 and 20 degrees.
"White sharks come in shore when the water surface temperature is about 18 degrees, and there hasn't been an attack in WA when the temperature wasn't 20 or below," Dr Neff said.
Dr Neff said there were a range of environmental factors surrounding shark attacks that needed to be studied over time, but an impatient and emotional demand for immediate action following an incident often undermined this.
"I think, more broadly, we're just not doing the public education that we need to do, there's lots of things that we could do to educate the public around shark movements," he said.
"That takes effort and that takes time and it takes building relationships and so far instead of doing any of that, we've done `kill the shark'.
Ben Gerring, 29, died on Friday night after he was attacked at Falcon, south of Perth on May 31, while 60-year-old diver Doreen Ann Collyer was killed on Sunday morning just north of the city.
A 4.2 metre great white shark was caught and killed on a baited drum line in the days after Mr Gerring's death, while lines were also laid following Ms Collyer's death.
Dr Neff dismissed the notion there were rogue sharks swimming in the ocean with a taste for humans, adding that killing a shark responsible for an attack did nothing to make the ocean safer.
He said the sooner the WA government and public accepted that shark encounters and attacks were a constant, long-term issue, the better.
"This is a very complicated and difficult situation for governments ... I just think we need to start telling the public the truth and build a broad-based education campaign, because the issue of shark bites is a long-term issue."
"There's no silver bullet and you can't shark-proof Australia."
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