 In the absence of substantial threats to its population, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed it as of Least Concern.German naturalists Marcus Elieser Bloch and Johann Gottlob Schneider originally described the blind shark as "Squalus waddi", in their 1801 "Systema Ichthyologiae".However, there is uncertainty over whether their account was referring to this species or the brownbanded bamboo shark ("Chiloscyllium punctatum"), as it was based on a painting by John Latham that could not be located by subsequent authors.