Australian Surfer Killed in Shark Attack
Sat Jul 10, 8:45 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian surfer was attacked and killed by possibly two sharks off the west Australian coast Saturday, said a fisheries official.
The surfer in his late 20s was attacked while surfing a break called "Left-Handers" near one of Australia's most famous big wave surf spots, Margaret River, 124 miles south of Perth in the state of Western Australia.
"The man suffered a large bite to the legs and torso," a Western Australia police spokesman told reporters.
One witness told Australia's Sky News that two teenagers who pulled the victim out of the water said the shark was "as big as a car." The Western Australian Department of Fisheries was investigating whether two sharks could have been involved.
"It looks as though there may have been two animals involved," a fisheries spokeswoman told reporters."
The St. John Ambulance Service at the small fishing village of Gracetown said it was alerted to the mid-afternoon shark attack by a witness standing on the beach.
There had been a number of recent shark sightings along the Margaret River coast but none in the vicinity of the attack.
Left-Handers is a long beach, often deserted, lined with a rocky shelf which is pounded by large ocean swells out of the southern Indian Ocean. The beach has been closed.
The first documented shark attack in Australia occurred in 1791 and there have been 625 shark attacks in the past 200 years, 187 of them fatal, according to the Australian Shark Attack File kept by Sydney's Taronga Zoo.
The last fatal shark attack in Western Australia was in 2000 off Cottesloe Beach in the city of Perth when a Great White attacked a bodysurfer only a few meters off the beach.
Most shark attacks in Australia are off the more populated east coast, but most fatal attacks occur in the cold waters off the south coast, a known breeding ground for Great Whites.
Margaret River surfer Bart Mulder said the attack would not stop him surfing the local breaks.
"We were going to go down to the beach for a surf and a couple of blokes came up and said, 'Don't go down there somebody's been bitten in half by a shark'," Mulder said.
"It's the first shark fatality down in the southwest here. Its hard to say how I feel about it, but it won't stop me surfing," he said.
Despite Australia's reputation for sharks, most shark attacks worldwide occur in North American waters, with 63 percent of attacks (36) in 2003, and of those 31 were in Florida, according to the International Shark File.
Sat Jul 10, 8:45 AM ET
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian surfer was attacked and killed by possibly two sharks off the west Australian coast Saturday, said a fisheries official.
The surfer in his late 20s was attacked while surfing a break called "Left-Handers" near one of Australia's most famous big wave surf spots, Margaret River, 124 miles south of Perth in the state of Western Australia.
"The man suffered a large bite to the legs and torso," a Western Australia police spokesman told reporters.
One witness told Australia's Sky News that two teenagers who pulled the victim out of the water said the shark was "as big as a car." The Western Australian Department of Fisheries was investigating whether two sharks could have been involved.
"It looks as though there may have been two animals involved," a fisheries spokeswoman told reporters."
The St. John Ambulance Service at the small fishing village of Gracetown said it was alerted to the mid-afternoon shark attack by a witness standing on the beach.
There had been a number of recent shark sightings along the Margaret River coast but none in the vicinity of the attack.
Left-Handers is a long beach, often deserted, lined with a rocky shelf which is pounded by large ocean swells out of the southern Indian Ocean. The beach has been closed.
The first documented shark attack in Australia occurred in 1791 and there have been 625 shark attacks in the past 200 years, 187 of them fatal, according to the Australian Shark Attack File kept by Sydney's Taronga Zoo.
The last fatal shark attack in Western Australia was in 2000 off Cottesloe Beach in the city of Perth when a Great White attacked a bodysurfer only a few meters off the beach.
Most shark attacks in Australia are off the more populated east coast, but most fatal attacks occur in the cold waters off the south coast, a known breeding ground for Great Whites.
Margaret River surfer Bart Mulder said the attack would not stop him surfing the local breaks.
"We were going to go down to the beach for a surf and a couple of blokes came up and said, 'Don't go down there somebody's been bitten in half by a shark'," Mulder said.
"It's the first shark fatality down in the southwest here. Its hard to say how I feel about it, but it won't stop me surfing," he said.
Despite Australia's reputation for sharks, most shark attacks worldwide occur in North American waters, with 63 percent of attacks (36) in 2003, and of those 31 were in Florida, according to the International Shark File.
But, it's part of life -- we all have to learn to live and deal with it. In fact, sharks have been on this earth long before humans ever existed.
