The 52-year-old surfer, local lifesavers and island boardriders fear the huge man-eater was responsible for the horrifying shark-on-shark attack off the island, east of Brisbane, which The Sunday Mail featured in graphic photographs in late October.

The smaller 3m white pointer, snared on a baited drumline set off North Stradbroke’s busy Cylinder Beach, was almost bitten in half by the bigger shark.

Mr Specht, who has surfed for more than four decades on the island, said he and fellow surfers who were used to swimming with sharks had switched to predator alert.

Surfer Russell Specht has survived a terrifying face-to-face encounter with a monster great white shark

“It was frightening. It was like a submarine heading towards me. I didn’t expect to live,” Mr Specht said.

He and several mates were surfing more than 100m off Main Beach when a younger boardrider shouted to them about the approaching monster.

“This thing came at me from behind. The other four guys with me, they took off to the beach and left me,” Mr Specht said.

“My first instinct was to paddle out to sea. Then I thought that this is not right, this is exactly what he wants me to do.”

Mr Specht bravely chose to sit quietly on his board and “eyeball” the shark – at least 4m long – as it came close enough to touch.

“He veered off, then he did a U-turn 10m away from me.

“I’m on a six foot three inch board. I’m thinking if he’s going to have a go at me he will eat me. But I thought you’re going to have to eat this board first,” Mr Specht said.

The champion surfer and Point Lookout Boardriders Club life member sat motionless on the board as the shark went directly under him, just 1m below, on its second pass.

Fellow surfers believe the same shark was hooked on a drum line off the beach later that day. The drumline “exploded” as the great white managed to free itself.

After spotting between 10 and 15 sharks off Main Beach in the past week, Mr Specht said he and other surfers were taking extra precautions and not surfing alone.

He said it was important to report his encounter just three weeks ago to warn holidaymakers that a dangerous great white shark was in local waters.

Surf Life Saving Queensland Gold Coast services co-ordinator Stuart Hogben, who has been on recent flights by the Westpac helicopter to North Stradbroke Island, supports Mr Specht’s suspicions about the great white being responsible for the attack on the other shark.

Mr Hogben saw several 2-3m sharks about 200-300m offshore along the island’s surf side during a flight last weekend. Other sightings were made off the Gold Coast.

Source: Paul Weston, The Courier-Mail

The shark did not attack her, and Ms Adamson said she only became aware of how close she was to the shark once she was out of the water. “There were people yelling at us to get out of the water, and I couldn’t hear because my head was under,” she said.

“But when I stuck my head up, people were yelling and screaming ‘Shark! Get out of the water’, so I got out of the water and up on the jetty I saw it just on the other side to where I was snorkelling. “It was probably about three metres long.”

Mrs Adamson said she had been looking down while snorkelling, so did not see the aquatic predator just metres away. “When you snorkel, you look down, not out in front of you,” she said. “But when I heard everyone yelling, I just swam, I didn’t look back.”

Tiger sharks are considered man-eaters, second only to the great white shark in the number of times they have attacked humans.

Mrs Adamson was thankful she had not seen the shark until she was out of the water. “It was scary enough as it was,” she said. “I don’t know what I would have done If I’d seen it in the water there with me.”

Michelle Adamson Narrowly Avoided Becoming Shark Food

A spokesman from the Department of Primary Industries told The Observer there were numerous shark sightings across the state at the weekend.

He said swimmers or snorkellers should leave the water immediately if a shark was sighted, not swim at night, in murky waters, alone or when bleeding. People should also avoid swimming near mouths of estuaries, artificial canals or lakes.

As for Mrs Adamson, she said it may be a while before she gets back in the water at all. “My husband went snorkelling again, but I didn’t go back in the water,” she said. “I was a bit wary. I might go back with a group of people, but never by myself.”

Mrs Adamson’s near miss comes after Gladstone free water diver John Pengelly was bitten by a bull shark at Lamont Reef, near Heron Island, last month.

Mr Pengelly was bitten on the arm, receiving deep cuts to his wrist and forearm. He is currently undergoing 12 weeks of physiotherapy.

Source: Nathan Paul, Gladstone Observer

At 7.30 on an overcast evening, Orgias was paddling for a wave in the centre of Australia’s most famous beach when he felt a tugging on his left arm. He thought it was a surfer jostling for position.

”I thought another surfer had grabbed me and was trying to stop me getting the wave,” the 34-year-old says. ”Then in a split second it all changed and something really powerful and massive dragged me straight under and started shaking me around.

”It bit straight through the wrist but the way it latched on it couldn’t bite through the elbow. It shook and it shook and it couldn’t get through so then it let go.”

After an estimated seven or eight seconds underwater, Orgias was released and popped to the surface. Scrambling on to his board, he saw the sea turning red. His left hand was dangling by a piece of skin. As he paddled frantically back to shore, he kept thinking about his pregnant wife. When he finally reached the sand, two surfers applied a makeshift tourniquet.

Glenn Orgias lost a hand after he was bitten by a great white shark while surfing at Bondi Beach.

”The great white is probably the best kind of shark to be attacked by,” Orgias says. ”They do one of two things: they bite and test, which is what happened to me, or they just decide they’re going to eat you and they swallow you whole. Bull sharks are more aggressive. They’ll bite something and then just because it’s injured they’ll go it again.”

In coast-loving Australia, the shark occupies a special place in the collective psyche. A scary monster for adults, it’s a creature from the depths of prehistory and our own unconscious, a dark shadow with dead eyes and razor teeth.

”As humans, we do not view it as acceptable to be eaten alive,” says Dr William Figueira, a keen diver and marine biologist at the University of Sydney. ”And we’re just very vulnerable in that realm [the sea].”

The surprise is how rarely sharks attack. According to the Australian Shark Attack File compiled at Taronga Zoo, there have been 24 recorded Australian fatalities due to shark attacks in the past 20 years. There has been, on average, one fatal attack a year since 1791.

Not that the figures have been stable. In the 1930s, with Aussies starting to embrace beach culture, 38 people were killed by sharks. In response, shark nets – or ‘’shark meshing” – were introduced in NSW in 1937. The meshing is still there, put in place each year from September to April. Costing the State Government $830,000 annually, the nets catch an average of 140 sharks a year – not to mention the turtles, rays and dugongs.

Since 1937 there has been only one fatality at a meshed NSW beach, Newcastle’s Merewether in 1951. In Sydney Harbour the last fatality occurred in 1963, while the most recent NSW death was at an unmeshed Ballina beach in 2008. And for every fatal attack, there are two non-fatal attacks. Of those attacked by a shark, about 70 per cent survive.

A marine ecologist at Macquarie University, Dr Iain Field, says the slim chances of being attacked by a shark can be further reduced by choosing when and where you swim.

”I don’t go out into the water at dawn or dusk if it’s a really grey day,” Field says. ”I don’t go out at cloudy river mouths and I tend not to go where there are great schools of fish.”

As Amy Wilkes from Sydney Aquarium says: ”If you see schools of fish behaving erratically it could possibly indicate the presence of a shark in the water. The safest option is to calmly exit the water.”

Many shark attacks are cases of mistaken identity. ”Being the cleaners of the sea, sharks take the infirm,” Field says. ”And a surfer splashing about on the surface can indicate an animal in distress.

”The other time attacks can occur is when sharks are being territorial. Sharks can have distinct home ranges, whether there’s a resource there or it’s babies they’re protecting, that’s when they attack to defend themselves.”

Australia has an amazing abundance of shark species, Field says, but we have detailed biological information for only about 10 per cent of them.

”We are still discovering new species and new subspecies,” he says.

Numbers are hard to gauge but Field says there is compelling evidence the populations of most species are in decline.

In recent years, dramatic innovations in shark repulsion include the Shark Shield, which creates an electromagnetic field around the user. Some universities have made them mandatory for underwater researchers. In the future, such technology could potentially be used to create electromagnetic shields around beaches.

At Bondi in February, Orgias never saw the shark that attacked him. He survived, he says, because of his pregnant wife.

”She’s the reason I got in to shore,” he says. ”The whole time I was thinking about her and not wanting her to have to go through having a baby by herself.”

Orgias and I are having lunch in a CBD courtyard full of pin-striped predators. In between mouthfuls of chicken schnitzel, he shows me his prosthetic left hand. It’s the same type of hand that de Gelder now has.

”My arm comes to there,” he says, pointing to his forearm. ”It’s got these little electrodes. I can open and close the hand and move the thumb around. It’s like having 25 per cent of your hand.”

Orgias doesn’t want notoriety. He gives interviews to promote the blood service that saved his life. ”I don’t support the culling of sharks,” he says. ”I support clean oceans and good ocean management and that means helping shark populations. It’s up to people to be aware of the risks. The one thing that I promote is the blood service. When you get attacked by a shark, what you need is blood.”

All in all, it’s been a big year. In July, his daughter, Bronte, was born. ”I’m so happy to be alive,” he says. ”The shark attack was horrendous but it’s been a great year.”

And, like de Gelder, Orgias is surfing again. He gets out into the line-up as often as he can at Bondi or Maroubra.

”I knew I’d be able to force myself into the water,” he says. ”What worried me the most was that I wouldn’t enjoy it. But I had fun. And sure, I worry about sharks. I just acknowledge it and say, ‘Right, I’ve got a fear but I’ve also got the ability to go out there and enjoy myself.’ I have no grudge against sharks.”

Source: Sacha Molitorisz, Sydney Morning Herald

In a world first, great white sharks will be monitored over the summer when they move to within 500m of metropolitan beaches from Ocean Reef to Garden and Rottnest Islands where satellite receivers are installed.

Surf-life saving groups, scientists and wildlife officials will be notified immediately a tagged shark moves near any one of 18 bright-yellow acoustic seabed devices.

Since the receivers were installed in May and December, Department of Fisheries’ senior research scientist Dr Rory McAuley said sharks had been picked up in Perth waters on four occasions.

The last detection was in September.

“The use of the technology that delivers real-time notifications of tag detections hasn’t been used in an operational sense anywhere else in the world,” Dr McAuley said.

“The information we are hoping to collect will hopefully provide us some answers to the questions we are always asking about how long white sharks spend off our beaches, whether they come back, is there a season, do they come back one year after the other.”

In all, researchers hope to tag 100 sharks over the next two years as part of a $400,000 government-funded project.

Great White Shark Near Bixby Ranch, CA

The sharks are fitted with the satellite-tracking darts by researchers who shoot or stab the devices into the flank of the animals.

So far, 74 white sharks have been tagged. Of these animals, 67 were from South Australia and seven were in tagged WA waters.

“It’s not a complete blanket. We have put the receivers out the front of surf life saving clubs because that’s where, if we are able to implement a response, that is where it is most likely to happen,” Mr McAuley said.

“The system is live now.”

Great white sharks are vulnerable to extinction and are a protected species. A total of six people have been killed by sharks in WA in the past 20 years.

Source: Narelle Towie, Perth Now, Sunday Times

The whale died after desperate efforts by up to 50 people who rushed to Twin Waters on a rescue mission. The 3.8 metre female was first spotted at 6:30AM south of Mudjimba Island.

Originally thought to be a pilot whale, it was later identified by an attending Australia Zoo rescue team as a “pseudorca crassidens” – a false killer whale.

Workers Attempt to Revive False Killer Whale

The rescue team brought the whale into the shallows to conduct the identification, and efforts then continued to save the distressed mammal, which was believed to be an adult.

The injured whale had a damaged dorsal fin and evidence of “superficial” shark bites.

The rescue efforts stretched well into the morning as volunteers and veterinarians fought to keep the stranded mammal alive.

Australia Zoo veterinarian Tim Portas conferred with Sea World veterinarians during the rescue efforts.

A rescue unit spokeswoman said staff and volunteers were able to move the large whale from the beach and transfer it to a truck for transport to the Australian Wildlife Hospital at Beerwah.

“Unfortunately, despite everyone’s best efforts, the whale did not survive,” she said. “It underwent a necropsy at Australia Zoo to identify the cause of the stranding. The full cause of the stranding will not be known until the pathology results are completed.”

Those involved in the rescue were said to be devastated over the death of the whale.

Sources said sightings of the extremely sociable false killer whales are not common on the Coast. They prefer deeper waters away from land.

Source: Nikkii Joyce, Sunshine Coast Daily

They claim the company drops minced tuna into the sea to attract the sharks – a practice known as chumming – and are concerned this may modify the great whites’ behaviour.

Paua Management Area Council 5 chairman Storm Stanley said divers were really worried. “We feel there’s a real danger,” he said.

An “explosion” of fur seals had attracted more sharks to southern waters, he said, adding that he was unsure how to overcome divers’ “fears of being chomped”.

The problem had been discussed at a meeting involving divers, the company and the Department of Conservation, but Stewart Island commercial diver Ian Wilson said nothing had been properly resolved.

“There’s still a lot of differences,” Mr Wilson said.

DOC southern islands area manager Andy Roberts chaired the meeting but said the problem wasn’t easy to resolve because no organisation had jurisdiction.

The company had approached DOC to develop guidelines on how it should operate, he said. “But DOC’s only point of concern is whether there’s going to be an impact on the sharks or not.” DOC was still waiting on legal advice, Mr Roberts said.

Cage diving with great white sharks off Ledbetter Beach

Great White Southern Dive Company co-owner Peter Scott said he felt the meeting with divers had gone well. “There’s a couple of guys that still have issues with it. That’s their choice,” Mr Scott said.

Sharks were blamed for killing one person in New Zealand every 13 years, on average, he said. The sharks were more likely to be attracted by fishing boats dumping scraps they could feed on than by his operation, he said.

Stewart Island fisherman Garry Neave said he had seen many more great whites during the past four years, particularly in Halfmoon Bay, but was unsure what was attracting them to the area.

Source: Amy Milne, The Southland Times

Mr. Sojoski, 55, of Copacabana, was teaching his visiting granddaughter Summer, 12, to surf at Avoca Beach, when he struck trouble about 11am on Saturday. “I stepped on it originally,” Mr Sojoski said.

“But then when I stepped off it, it latched on straight away and it was the weirdest sensation. It was like a vice squeezing and squeezing. Then it started shaking my leg and moving it off the ground.”

John Sojoski of Copacabana was bitten by a shark while surfing at Avoca Beach.

Mr Sojoski managed to kick the shark away and still send Summer in on a wave, without telling her what had happened. “She didn’t know until we got back to the clubhouse,” he said. “I figured if I freaked her out, she might fall off the board.”

Water and air patrols were unable to locate the shark, with the beach reopened mid-afternoon on Saturday.

Mr Sojoski, a surf board manufacturer, counted 36 punctures in his lower left leg and was told to stay away from the water for 13 days. But as soon as he gets the all-clear, he’ll be back.

“I’ve surfed for 30 years and haven’t seen a shark – I didn’t even see this one,” he said. “But the water is the sharks’ domain and we have to respect that.”

The incident hasn’t dampened Summer’s enthusiasm for the water, with Mr Sojoski’s girlfriend Amanda her likely replacement “surf coach” for the rest of her holiday.

John Sojoski, Avoca Beach Shark Attack Survivor

Mr Sojoski couldn’t praise enough the actions of the people who helped him, thanking surf lifesavers, ambulance officers and Gosford Hospital staff – who he said were “so understaffed but still managed to have smiles on their faces”.

Source: Emma Herd, Central Coast Express-Advocate

The revelation follows a large, aggressive tiger shark menacing two kayakers as they paddled to shore from Mudjimba Island on December 20.

Queensland shark control program manager Tony Ham said the increased movement of tiger sharks was an annual event signifying the end of the breeding season and the start of feeding frenzies as the feared predator gorges on large schools of bait fish along the Queensland coast.

Mr Ham warned people against swimming in dirty water, near large schools of bait fish and in rivers, creeks or canals. “There’s nothing particularly to be alarmed about – it’s just that spring-summer movement of sharks around the place,” he said. “(But) people should obviously take care when they swim.”

A recent spate of Tiger shark catches off Sunshine Coast beaches has triggered a warning for swimmers.

Well-known shark hunter Vic Hislop said tigers were now coming closer to shore to feed on turtles, stingrays and dugongs because heavy fishing had thinned their traditional big-fish diet.

He said for every tiger caught in a net or on a drumline, hundreds more were lurking in the area. “Scientists are trying to work out what’s happening to all the turtles. “But I know what’s happening to them – they’re being eaten by tiger sharks,” he said.

“That’s why there have been more attacks and more people disappearing right around Australia. It’s not going to get better. People have got to learn to be careful.”

The Coast’s shoreline is protected by 11 shark nets and 78 drumlines. A total of 79 sharks, mostly tiger and bull sharks, were caught in 2008 – 25 more than the previous year.

A four-metre tiger shark can weigh between 400kg and 450kg, although five-metre-plus tigers can weigh more than a tonne. Their potential contact with humans is increased because they regularly visit shallow reefs, harbours and canals.

The tiger is second only to the great white shark in the number of recorded attacks on humans.

Source: Mark Bode, Sunshine Coast Daily

The Copacabana resident fought off the shark by kicking his leg in and out of the water. He was taken to Gosford Hospital with deep cuts to his lower leg.

The beach was closed while lifeguards and the Westpac Rescue Helicopter searched the water, but there was no sign of the shark.

Source: The Post News

Avoca Beach, Shark Attack Site

The skipper from Simply Scuba, Wayne, and James a staff member from Scuba Adventures were busy working in the launch area when they saw this guy come stumbling out the water bleeding heavily. They immediately rushed to assist and phoned Sandy from Brittlestar Guesthouse for assistance. At that stage Sandy was in Manguzi but she referred them to Karl who immediately got hold of oxygen and rushed down to the beach where the guy had already collapsed because of shock and blood loss.

He had been attacked by the shark and was bitten on the upper arm/shoulder area and on his hand. Fortunately the wounds were not severe, but the poor guy was in shock and had to be stabilized. Wayne and Petro from Simply Scuba stayed with the victim while he was taken to the local clinic for attendance. Daryl, a paramedic and skipper for Gozo Azul helped to get the patient stabilized but failed to get a drip inserted into the victim’s arm. He then decided to just stop the bleeding and bandaged up where needed.

Ponta da Ouro Beach, Post-Shark Attack Chaos

The local commandant of police, arrived at the scene and gave permission for the patient to be airlifted by helicopter and taken to hospital in Manguzi. Colin, a resident of Maputo who owns a holiday home in Ponta fortunately had his helicopter in Ponta and could assist immediately. The man was flown to Manguzi Hospital and transferred to Empangeni Hospital from there. He is fine.

After the incident holiday makers were furious with the shark and tried to catch it with their fishing rods from the beach right in front the Beach Bar. The Tiger launched out the water twice and the spectators enjoyed the view although with aggression. The shark remained in the shore breaks for the rest of the day where it was visible to all, while fishermen tried to catch it. They had it on their hooks twice but both times the shark escaped.

This incident was discussed in all earnest with the head of marines (MPA), Miguel and Antonio the Port Captain for Ponta do Ouro. This incident was due to happen some or other time, due to the negligence of fishermen throwing fish remains over the sides of their boats after cleaning their catch in the Bay of Ponta do Ouro. Of course this will attract sharks, and if this is not going to stop immediately more unfortunate incidences like this might happen in future.

Ponta do Ouro is a very safe and tranquil village with no shark attacks for the past 15 years since 1994 when a guy lost a foot. This is because we are naturally protected by the school of dolphins permanently staying in Ponta area. They will drive away all sharks from their territory. People must not get upset about this unfortunate incident, but fishermen have to be informed of the dangers when they throw the remains of their catch out into the water in the bay.

Source: African Diver

John Costello at the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI ) said the board later washed up on the shore but there were no signs of the unnamed lifeguard. He said: “The witness said before he disappeared he threw his hands up in the air and was pulled down and a pool of blood was left.”

The weekend attack was the second this year and the fourth in the past two years at the beach which is popular with South Africans and tourists. In January off-duty lifeguard Sikhanyiso Bangilizwe, 26, was attacked and killed by a bull shark which hunts in shallow waters and can be aggressive. Mr Costello added: “People are constantly being warned not to swim in murky waters, but they continue to put their lives in danger by not behaving responsibly.”

Lifeguard Abongile Maza, who was paddling a few metres behind the victim, said the attack had been sudden and vicious, adding that the water turned blood red. He said: “I could not believe what I saw with my own eyes, because it did not seem real.”

Coastguard chief Khaya Mjo said: “He was riding the waves on his knee board with another lifeguard who was riding from a distance. The other lifeguard said he only heard him scream, then he saw him raise a hand and there was only blood.”

The shark could not be identified because it was impossible to make an analysis without seeing the bite marks.

Bull Shark Killed Lifeguard in January 2009

The NSRI said police were investigating the disappearance but no body parts had yet been found.

Source: The Sun Online

The 19-year-old suffered deep lacerations to his wrist and lower forearm while spearfishing at the reef, 44 nautical miles east of Gladstone.

After receiving treatment from medical staff on Heron Island he was flown to Rockhampton and airlifted to Brisbane for surgical assessment.

Diving with fellow Curtis Coast Spearfishing members David Jenson and Nat Keene, it was their first dive of the day when the shark came from below and bit Mr Pengelly.

“There were two guys together and to the shark they probably looked like a turtle,” said Mark Brookes, president of Curtis Coast Spearfishing club, who was also diving at the time.

Source: Miranda Cashin, Brisbane Times

“We have species that need our attention and protection,” Yao told reporters at a press conference launching the campaign. “They are endangered by excessive hunting by humans and deprived of habitats due to human greed.”

The television advertisement produced for the San Francisco-based conservation group WildAid shows Yao pushing away a bowl of shark fin soup that is served to him in an upmarket restaurant.

“If you could see how shark fin is made, could you still eat it?” a voice asks as Yao looks at an aquarium in the dining room where a bleeding shark flails after its fin has been cut off. One by one, sharply dressed diners push their bowls away as Yao says: “When the buying stops, the killing can too.”

The ad will air on China Central Television — the government’s main broadcast mouthpiece — and on screens in government buildings, a WildAid spokeswoman said. WildAid President Steve Trent told reporters a recent survey in China found that two thirds of respondents did not know shark fin came from sharks.

Shark fin soup, which can cost more than 100 dollars a bowl, is served at weddings and on important occasions to display wealth, but also because it is believed to improve one’s health. However, Trent said a 2007-2008 WildAid study indicated that a quarter of shark fin samples sold at Hong Kong markets were unfit for human consumption. He added that high mercury levels commonly found in shark fin increased the risk of infertility and brain damage.

Growing demand for shark fin — driven mainly by Chinese consumers — had caused populations of some shark species to collapse by as much as 99 percent, WildAid said. The shellfish industry also is threatened by the dwindling shark numbers, Trent said. Sharks help control populations of certain shellfish predators, which have multipied wildly.

“With China’s leadership, we can save the world’s sharks,” Trent said. “With Yao’s help, this will happen a lot quicker.” Yao, who has been ranked as China’s most successful celebrity six years running by Forbes magazine, has been a spokesman for shark preservation since 2006 and bought the Sharks basketball team in July.

“Hopefully in future our kids will learn about sharks not only from our team, but they can still see live sharks in the ocean — not too close,” he told reporters after the news conference.

Source: D’Arcy Doran, Yahoo News

A Great White Shark

At first the 24-year-old gardener thought it was one of his mates having a laugh as they enjoyed a dip in the ocean under the warm Spring sunshine. But when Mr Brougham turned around he saw what every ocean dweller dreads the most: the face of a ferocious shark staring straight back at him.

“I came up, as soon as I got to the surface I felt someone, something pulling my leg and I thought it was just someone being a smart a**e and I turned around and just saw the big face looking at me,” he recalled earlier today from his hospital bed where he was being treated for shark wounds to his ankle.

“And then I just started beating it, just trying to get rid of it and then it let me go and then I was just [swimming] straight towards the cliffs [beach].”

Mr Brougham was swimming about 20m off the shore looking for shellfish at a cove near the town of Normanville on SA’s Fleurieu Peninsula when he was bitten by the shark, which was estimated to be almost 3m (10ft) long.

He said he was resurfacing after diving down to the ocean floor to see if there were any fish to catch when he felt something bite. After fighting off the shark he swam to the cliffs where the brother of his girlfriend was fishing, to raise the alarm. “The swim from where it happened to the cliff felt like forever,” Mr Brougham said.

He was treated by doctors at a nearby hospital and will need further surgery on his ankle after his Achilles tendon was almost ripped off in the attack, but Mr Brougham said he is simply happy to be alive.

“I’m lucky to be here, I’m lucky to have all my limbs attached,” he said. When asked when he would get back in the water, he said: “not anytime soon”.

The manager of the nearby Wirrina Resort, Aaron Batts, told The Times there had been a number of bronze whaler sharks sighted over the weekend, which may have been attracted to the large schools of salmon which are regularly seen off nearby beaches.

“There’s also a resident great white that comes through every summer,” Mr Batts said. “He’s about 6m (19ft) long, but as far as I know he hasn’t attacked anyone yet.”

The attack on Mr Brougham was the first of Australia’s current summer season, but the 50th attack in South Australia’s history – 19 of which have been fatal.

Last summer there were a number of shark attacks all around the country, one of which was fatal.

Brian Guest, 51, disappeared while snorkelling off a beach in Western Australia in December. He was last seen in the area where a 14ft great white shark was seen thrashing around. His body has not been found.

As a result of Mr Guest‘s death, the West Australian premier Colin Barnett has announced extra funding to allow for daily shark patrols on the state’s most popular beaches over the peak summer season from mid-December until the end of February.

“It is important the community feels safe while swimming and enjoying our beaches,” Mr Barnett said.

Source: Times Online Reported by Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney