A unique combination of acoustic tagging and genetic and statistical advances has produced the first evidence-based population estimates for Australia’s white sharks. Providing reliable information on the size and trend of Australia’s white shark populations has hitherto been an impossible task. Advances being made in this research ─ building coordinated national sampling regimes to measure key biological parameters using close-kin mark recapture, and conducting electronic tagging and targeted surveys, and combining these in population models ─ will significantly improve our understanding of white shark populations in Australia.