I’M driving back from Albany after interviewing a heartbroken Mark Muscat about the loss of his son Jay to a shark attack and I felt guilty.

The 17-year-old, whose father Mark describes as his “best friend”, was the last West Australian to be killed off our coast, a year ago.

Camera Icon Danielle Le Messurier Credit: News Corp Australia

And, as the Muscats told me, most people have moved on. Maybe that’s why I feel guilty.

As the state enters another long, hot summer, the fervour that led the Barnett Government to implement controversial “catch-and-kill” shark measures seems to have waned significantly.

At the time — when seven people were killed by sharks within 3½ years — the community demanded action.

Premier Colin Barnett said he introduced the measures, along with others, because he had “no alternative” but to react to the string of attacks that were making people scared to go in the water.

It’s funny how indifferent the public can become when an issue loses its momentum. But that’s not why I felt guilty after interviewing the Muscats. It’s because I have knowingly tempted fate on multiple occasions diving with sharks.

Perhaps carelessly, I have signed my life away on waivers that absolve diving companies of any responsibility for my death.

I’ve dropped into a 460ft hole in the middle of the ocean to dive with hammerheads and Caribbean reef sharks in Belize. I even felt the fin of a grey nurse brush past me off the coast of Rainbow Beach in Queensland.

I also recently interviewed Sean Pollard, who lost his left arm and both hands to two great whites when he was mauled surfing off a remote beach east of Esperance.

Camera Icon Shark attack victim Sean Pollard is trialling a hi-tech prosthetic hand Credit: News Corp Australia

It’s been just over a year since that attack too, but already Sean is learning to use a bionic hand that uses muscle signals in his residual limb to control the device, enabling him to once again pick up objects, brush his teeth, and hold his girlfriend’s hand.

If anyone has an excuse to be vocal in the shark debate, it’s him. Sean told me that while discussing further shark culling in WA was “pointless”, the lesson to be learnt by authorities is the importance of taking a proactive approach to shark mitigation.

But the question remains: how do you protect hundreds of thousands of West Australians who will go into the water no matter how many people are killed by sharks?

And how can the Barnett Government protect 12,000km of coastline?

The cold, hard truth is that no measures will be enough to eradicate the risks.

Those controversial drumlines were rightly dropped because they never met their mark — not a single great white was caught during the costly $1.28 million, 14-week trial.

Former Environmental Protection Authority chairman, Paul Vogel, conceded there was also a “high degree of scientific uncertainty” about the impacts on the southwestern white shark population.

As we enter a new year, beachgoers can take some comfort in the $3.1 million the government is spending over 2015-16 for aerial and beach patrols in addition to government-funded jet skis and watchtowers.

A further $800,000 has been allocated to beach enclosures at Middleton Beach in Albany, Busselton foreshore, Old Dunsborough and Sorrento beach.

But City of Joondalup Mayor Troy Pickard recently claimed $200,000 wasn’t nearly enough to cover costs of an enclosure.

And, this summer the only beach enclosures in place will be at Busselton, Old Dunsborough, and Coogee Beach — which is an eco-barrier self-funded by the City of Cockburn.

Camera Icon Craig Moss with his Shark Eco Barrier. Credit: News Corp Australia

Shark Eco Barrier founder Craig Moss will likely be awarded a tender from the NSW government for a $250,000 eco-barrier at Ballina’s Lighthouse Beach. He has also submitted a tender for the enclosure at Sorrento Beach.

After all this are we any safer? Probably not.

In my opinion, the best advancements in WA’s shark strategy have been prioritising research by studying the movements of tagged sharks and launching the SharkSmart website.

SharkSmart provides West Australians with information that enables them to track the movements of tagged sharks in real time as well as review the latest shark sightings, beach closures and warnings.

The NSW Government, which is also trying to tackle the shark issue after one death and 14 attacks in the past year, has upgraded its SharkSmart app to replicate the WA model.

It’s important we remain aware of the risks. But ultimately none of it will matter when I swim to Rottnest next month.

People’s behaviours as a whole rarely change. I’m not going to stop doing the things I love because I know there’s a potential risk.

That risk pales against the reality that I’m three times more likely to be struck down by lightning and over a thousand times more likely to die in a car accident.

West Australians who grew up around water won’t suddenly become land-only creatures, and I’m not going to stop driving to work.

The best thing we can do is inform the public as much as possible about the risks and let them make up their own minds about when and how they use the ocean.