The Grey Nurse Shark (GNS) (Carcharias taurus) is listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species due to declining numbers around the world. The eastern Australian population of GNS has been declared “critically endangered” under the Australian Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) and as such is the subject of an on-going recovery plan (Australian Government Department of the Environment 2014) which is currently due for review. ​ The initial understanding of relative changes in GNS population size were based on historical and anecdotal fishing records. A key area of evidence for the decline of the eastern Australian GNS populations was the number of GNS captured in the beach protection sharks nets. These nets have been in place off Sydney continually since 1937, Newcastle since 1949 and Wollongong and the Central Coast since 1987 and provide a valuable if devastating long-term dataset for species caught in the nets. The continued decline in the number of GNS trapped in these nets, from 30 GNS per year in the early 1950s to one or two per year by the mid-1980s led to the protection of GNS in NSW in 1984. However, the most convincing source of evidence for their decline, the beach shark nets remain in place in NSW and a new or contract renewal is currently under consideration in NSW. ​ Although the beach protection shark nets contributed to the decline of the GNS population, they were also vulnerable to spear fishing and game fishing through the 1960’s and 1970’s. This played an important, but more hidden role in the demise of the GNS. The voluntary ban on catching GNS by game fishers in 1979 followed by NSW Government protection in 1984 and the classification of GNS habitat as critical sites subject to special management regulations all play a role towards the protection and hopefully the recovery of the Australian east coast population of GNS.