Every month in The Australian Women’s Weekly, we invite people to share their stories. In the July 2026 issue, we published Dr Julia Constance’s story. She has found her happy place as a groundbreaking shark researcher and wrangler in the outback.
The Roper River in the Northern Territory is one of the most remote and untouched waterways in the country. The region is mostly inaccessible by road for several months of the year during the wet season, and even in the dry, you need a serious 4WD to get there. When I’m working out on the Roper – as a shark and ray researcher – I’m on the river from dawn until dusk every day, and I sleep in a very basic camp on the floodplain. It’s one of my favourite places in the world.
My mum always asks me, “How did you end up there?” It’s a good question. I grew up on a crop farm in inland New South Wales during the millennial drought. We grew wheat, barley, sunflowers, chickpeas and more on non-irrigated, dry land, and it was a real struggle. Mum had to come out of retirement and go back to nursing because of the droughts. I’ve gone from one extreme to the other.
Now I work with sharks and live in the wettest capital city in Australia, Darwin, on Larrakia Country. I never expected to be doing this. To answer Mum’s question, I kind of fell into shark research.
I always wanted to work with animals, but I didn’t get the ATAR required to do veterinary science at university, so I ended up doing conservation biology and photography. During my undergraduate degree, I did volunteer research work with reptiles and mammals in western NSW, sea turtles in Queensland, and eventually sharks in North Queensland. That’s where I first fell in love with sharks. When I finished undergrad, I came to the NT to do my Honours degree. I was only supposed to be in Darwin for a year. That was five years ago.
There is nowhere else like the Top End. Very few people get to go to the places that I go, and even fewer people get to see the sharks I work with. My PhD thesis was focused on both the Northern River and the Speartooth sharks, which are two of only four global shark species that live in rivers. I managed the tracking infrastructure and data of nearly 200 sharks and used it to calculate their natural mortality rates and understand their movement ecology. Without this research, we would have none of these insights.
It’s the importance of the research that keeps me going on the hard days, and there are quite a few hard days.
It can be frustrating being a woman working in this field. There is a lot of casual sexism. People don’t expect to see a blonde lady fishing and driving boats in these really remote rivers. Sometimes I feel like an alien. I’ve noticed men watching me out on the boat, waiting for me to make a mistake so they can try to come to my rescue. It’s pretty patronising.
When I first started out, that sort of stuff really bothered me, and I felt a lot of pressure to prove myself. Now, at 31, I’m a lot more confident in my own expertise and skills, so I don’t feel the need to prove myself. I’ve learned not to give my energy to any of the bullshit, so it rolls off me these days. I always make an effort to talk to the recreational fishers and explain what I’m doing, so hopefully my presence becomes less of a shock to them.
Every day, I feel very lucky to be doing this work. The more I learn about these animals, the more mind-blown I am.
It’s not just the sharks I’ve learned about, either. I’ve also learned a lot about myself. Having completed my PhD – after wanting to quit many, many times – I’ve found that I am tough (maybe stubborn?). I’ve also realised that being vulnerable is a strength. It’s okay to ask for help.
I am happiest when I’m out in the field, catching and safely releasing sharks and rays. Maybe I’m a little nonchalant, but I don’t get frightened of wildlife. I know that all animals – regardless of size, shape, or teeth – are more scared of me and just want to get away.
I’m never too worried about camping either – you just have to make sure you’re far enough away from the bank and look out for croc slides! When I first moved to the NT, I had one crocodile lining herself up to launch at me, and I’ve also had several close calls with sharks and stingrays, but these are always my own fault.
Sharks get such a bad rap. I’d like people to know that they’re not all huge, killing machines like they make great whites and bull sharks out to be. ‘Sharks’ are a group of more than 1200 sharks, rays and chimaeras, which are highly diverse and play a really important role in our ecosystems. Sadly, they are one of the most threatened groups of animals on the planet, and populations are in catastrophic decline globally. The biggest threat to sharks is overfishing, followed by habitat loss, climate change and pollution.
During my Honours research, before my PhD, I actually listed the first species of extinct shark or ray, which was the Java stingaree in Indonesia. It took two-and-a-half years to get it officially listed as extinct on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. It was a major breakthrough. For a long time, people have thought of the ocean as a bottomless pit with unlimited wildlife. I’ve proved that it isn’t.
I want to make as much change as I possibly can on this planet. Sometimes, because I work in conservation research – rather than in the direct rescue space, for example – it can feel like I’m not doing enough. The NT has the most incredible biodiversity, but it is often overlooked in research and poorly surveyed. Recently, it was revealed that the marine life in Darwin Harbour rivals that of the famous Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. This region is home to highly-threatened species that are almost gone everywhere else in the world, including the river sharks, sawfish and guitarfish. My hope is that my research will help protect the NT’s wildlife and their habitats.
For much of my life, due to challenges in my childhood, I did not see a future for myself. I honestly felt I had no place in the world. Moving to the NT has helped me find my place, and for the first time, I see a future where I have a positive impact on the world.
As with many conservationists, I can get despondent at times at the state of our environment, but there is work to be done, and we need passionate people to do it. I have a purpose and a voice, and I’m going to use it.
This My Story originally featured in the July 2026 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Subscribe so you never miss an issue.
