Population Numbers/Research

New South Wales Government noticed that the population was declining and under the Fisheries Management Act of 1994 pronounced them as critically endangered in the year 2000 (Department of Environment 2014).  On the east coast the grey nurse shark population is estimated to be anywhere between 1146-1662.

 

What the Grey Nurse Shark is labelled as by different states and organisations. Labels include endangered, critically endangered, protected and                                                                              threatened (Department of Environment 2014)

The NSW Department of Primary Industry looked into the population of grey nurse sharks along the east coast. In the 1950's & 1960's the species was present in 60 different sights along the east coast, the DPI revisited these sites as found that in 63% of them there was no sighting of the shark.