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Are there too few great white sharks off California? (LA Times)
It's a mystery of the sea: How many great white sharks are prowling near California's surf lines?
Some scientists say the population is large and healthy. Others say it is alarmingly small. No one has ever known for certain, but the question has become crucial this year.
State and federal authorities are weighing a request to classify the fish scientists know as Carcharodon carcharias as an endangered species worth preserving at all costs, a step that could, among other things, wipe out what's left of a gill net fishing industry that inadvertently snares great whites.
Some scientists say the population is large and healthy. Others say it is alarmingly small. No one has ever known for certain, but the question has become crucial this year.
State and federal authorities are weighing a request to classify the fish scientists know as Carcharodon carcharias as an endangered species worth preserving at all costs, a step that could, among other things, wipe out what's left of a gill net fishing industry that inadvertently snares great whites.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-great-white-sharks-20130526,0,1654596.story
Since I've never gotten to see one in the wild, I guess my answer (even as a surfer and diver) is that we do have to few.
It surprises me how little we know about these creatures - locally and globally. I was also surprised to see that we have any sort of gill-net industry at all; I thought that method was out of fashion, if not illegal...