In Wellington, New Zealand, authorities announced on Friday that a surfer who went missing in Australia is presumed to have been a victim of a shark attack. The search is ongoing in the waters where the man was last seen.
The 28-year-old was in the sea at a popular surf beach in South Australia where another man was killed by a white shark in 2023.
A witness observed the shark attack on Thursday evening at Granites Beach, located near the coastal town of Streaky Bay. Following the incident, the witness bravely rode a jet ski into the sea to retrieve the missing man’s surfboard, according to Senior Constable Rebecca Stokes who spoke to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“Despite efforts to locate the young man, there have been no traces of him so far,” Stokes informed the ABC. “Based on the descriptions provided by witnesses, it is highly probable that he tragically lost his life in the shark attack.”
The beach was known to be frequented by sharks, Stokes said. She did not specify what species of shark was believed to be involved.
Emergency responders and volunteers were searching offshore on Friday for the local man and the beach was closed to the public. Police were preparing a coroner’s report, a statement said.
Shark attacks in Australia are rare, with 255 fatal bites recorded since 1791 in the country of 27 million people, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database.
But the state of South Australia has registered more episodes in the past two years than usual. There were five shark attacks of the state’s coast in 2023, three of them fatal and one at the same beach as Thursday’s incident.
Scientists at the time said they did not know the reason for the cluster. There was one non-fatal shark bite off South Australia’s coast in 2024.
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