In a correspondence focusing on our hypothesis of “problem individuals” being responsible for most human fatalities within large‐bodied shark populations (Clua & Linnell, ), Neff ( ) raises some concerns about how our hypothesis may be perceived by the public and managers. ...while our “problem individual” and a “rogue” shark could indeed both tend to repeat an initial strike on a human being, as a potential prey, in our perspective, the latter would develop a malicious and targeted preference for human prey as embodied by films such as “Jaws.” By focusing on the numerous mechanisms that can lie behind nonfatal bites on humans, or raising an anthropomorphic interpretation of an animal behavior in response to our hypothesis, Neff unfortunately overlooks most of our attempt to come up with alternative explanatory mechanisms behind fatal shark attacks and develop testable hypotheses and appropriate alternative management actions.