A surfer suffered minor injuries after being bitten by a shark off Australia’s east coast on Tuesday, officials said, in what they described as the fourth shark attack in three days near Sydney and along New South Wales’ northern coastline.
The shark attacked the surfer’s surfboard at Point Plomer, about 460 kilometers (290 miles) north of the New South Wales state capital, around 9 a.m., officials said. The surfer, 39, was treated for minor cuts, Kempsey-Crescent Head Surf Life Saving Club captain Matt Worrall said.
“The board seemed to take most of the impact,” Worrall told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “He made his own way into shore where he was assisted by locals.” Bystanders drove the man to a hospital and he was later discharged.
Authorities closed beaches along New South Wales’ northern coast and northern Sydney on Tuesday, and local authorities said Sydney’s northern beaches would remain closed to swimmers and surfers for 48 hours. Electronic drumlines designed to alert authorities when a large shark has taken bait were deployed off the Sydney coast.
Officials warned that recent rainfall had left the water murky, increasing the risk of bull shark attacks. Surf Life Saving NSW chief executive Steve Pearce said anyone considering going into the surf should not. “If anyone’s thinking of heading into the surf this morning anywhere along the northern beaches, think again. We have such poor water quality that’s really conducive to some bull shark activity,” Pearce said.
Pearce added, “If you’re thinking about going for a swim, just go to a local pool because at this stage, we’re advising that beaches are unsafe,” and the advice was tied to the conditions in the affected area.
The earlier attacks included a Sunday incident in which a 12-year-old boy was attacked after jumping from a 6-meter (20-foot) ledge known as Jump Rock near Shark Beach inside Sydney Harbor. Police credited the boy’s friends with saving his life by jumping from the cliff during the attack and dragging him back to shore. Supt. Joseph McNulty said, “Those actions of those young men are brave under the circumstances and very confronting injuries for those boys to see.”
News media have reported that the boy lost both legs in that attack. Around noon Monday, an 11-year-old boy was on a surfboard attacked by a shark at Dee Why Beach, an ocean beach north of Manly, but escaped uninjured after the shark bit off a chunk of the board.
Later on Monday, police said a surfer in his 20s was bitten on a leg off North Steyne Beach in the northern suburb of Manly at 6:20 p.m. Bystanders pulled him from the water before an ambulance took him to a hospital in a critical condition.
All three Sydney beaches involved had some form of shark protection netting, but officials said it was not immediately clear where the attacks occurred in relation to that netting. Pearce said the scene of the latest Point Plomer attack was isolated and did not have shark netting.
Dee Why Beach is close to the beach where a 57-year-old surfer was killed by a suspected white shark last September, and in November a 25-year-old Swiss tourist was killed and her partner was seriously injured trying to save her as they swam off a national park north of Sydney.