Psychologists have warned that West Australians fuelled on fear of sharks are changing the way they think about the beach, which may have a long-term impact on sports, recreation and tourism.
Western Australia's iconic surf and its pristine beaches are major tourism drawcards, attracting millions of visitors each year but tourists and locals alike have become increasingly reluctant to get in the water.
The Australian Psychological Society says a range of consequences stemming from heighted shark paranoia include less ocean-related physical activity, complications for competitive ocean athletes, heightened anxiety and children and parents fearing the ocean.
Perth-based sports psychologist and College of Sport and Exercise Psychologists chair Shayne Hanks said people needed to better understand "shark anxiety".
"Our concern is that there may potentially be a generation of young children who are too scared to get into the water," he said.
"And a lot of that is the result of the parents seeing graphic images of sharks in the media and are feeling that anxiety and they want to protect their children.
"Taking up the recreational level first, it contributes to inactivity. So there's an increased risk of childhood obesity. I think the other thing is, from a wellbeing sense, the beaches have always been the Aussie playground. It's somewhere families and kids can go that is free."
Shark anxiety was also impacting people's behaviour and could hurt tourism-related businesses.
"You look at some of the communities down south, they're probably seeing less business because people are reluctant to go down there," Mr Hanks said.
Yallingup Surf School owner Crystal Wallace, 29, has been surfing since she was 10 and said she heard adults in her community being scared of the water.
"I feel safe when I'm teaching. But when my husband or other family members go and surf places where there has been a fatal shark attack, that's when I feel a bit ill," she said.
Ms Wallace said she had noticed a change in the mentality of some of her surf students and their parents who had been scared by media reports, despite the fact her lessons were conducted in a safe environment.
"It would come on the news [reports of shark attacks] and we would get a call, it could be at 8pm at night," she said.
"They would say 'sorry, we don't want to surf tomorrow because our kids are scared'."
Ms Wallace said an array of media reports on shark attacks had instilled fear into the community.
But the surfer, whose father and brother are both fishermen, believes there is something unusual going on in the ocean.
"The media have overblown it, but I think there's a problem," she said.
"There's an imbalance in the ocean. There's an increase in the population of white pointers."
Ms Wallace said that, while her business continues to be hit by shark-fear fallout, it appears the worst is over.
"It had more of an impact when we had that big clump of shark attacks together," she said.
"It almost feels like people are getting a bit more used to it.
"There are people that have decided that they will get eaten by a shark even if they just put their toes in. We get tourists that won't even swim, thinking they will get eaten by a shark."
Tourism WA said it was difficult to determine what impact sharks were having on tourism numbers.
"Tourism WA doesn't have any statistical evidence to suggest that shark attacks have impacted the number of tourists coming to Western Australia," a spokesperson said.
"That's not to say they may have impacted on some individual, water-based tourism businesses."
Surf Life Saving WA CEO Paul Andrew said although figures showed people were still flocking to WA's beaches, their behaviour had changed.
"According to the statistics collated by our lifesavers, attendance at patrolled WA beaches rose approximately 14 per cent in 2013/14 compared to the previous year," he said.
"What we have seen over the past few years though is subtle changes to swimming behaviours, in that fewer people seem to be swimming around dawn and dusk and that, generally speaking, they are swimming closer to shore."
Mr Hanks said it was important people were aware how shark reports were changing their behaviour and advised taking a considered approach to swimming along WA's coastline.
"If you're a parent, you don't need to show your kids those front page pictures of sharks," he said.
