I remember being on the Alabama shore a few years back. A shark was swimming down the shore line and I yelled at the lady in it’s path not to move. She stood there, watched it swim by and never even bothered to leave the water. I later apologized for yelling at her. She told me not to worry about it. Said, “I live here, I see em all the time. My husband and I fish for em.”
The value isn’t in a complete census of all the sharks, but a sample of that number to be used, in conjunction with historical data, to determine when shark levels are high enough to result in an increase in attacks.