A 38-year-old spearfishing diver died after a shark attacked him off Rottnest Island, police said, renewing attention on dangers to people entering the water around the tourist island off Australia’s southwest coast. Western Australia Police said the man was spearfishing with a friend when he was attacked on a coral reef near the island on Saturday.
Police said the diver was bitten on the legs near a dive boat and was then taken by that boat about one kilometer to Rottnest Island. A team of paramedics worked to resuscitate the diver on the island, but he could not be saved, Western Australia Police Sergeant Michael Wear said.
Wear said lifeguards reported that a white shark about five meters long had been seen in the vicinity before the attack. The police account described the incident as taking place near dive operations, with the diver initially remaining close to the boat before being transported to Rottnest Island.
Police said the fatality was Australia’s first shark death since January, when a 12-year-old boy died in a hospital days after he was mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor. They also said Rottnest Island’s most recent fatal shark attack before Saturday came in 2011, when a 32-year-old diver died.
Western Australia Police said Australia has averaged more than three fatal shark attacks each year in recent decades, placing Saturday’s death within a longer-running pattern of deadly encounters between sharks and people in the water.