Acknowledgements
The author thanks Micha Jackson, Craig Hilton-Taylor, Caroline Pollock and Nick Dulvy for comments on the manuscript, and the Editors of Mitochondrial DNA for the opportunity to submit this article.
Declaration of interest
The author is the Australia and Oceania Regional Vice-Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Shark Specialist Group. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the paper. The author is supported by the Marine Biodiversity and Northern Australia Hubs, collaborative partnerships supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program (NERP).