Teenage surfer mauled at Australian shark hotspot

SYDNEY: A 17-year-old surfer was attacked by a shark off Australia’s east coast yesterday, with locals saying he was lucky his board bore the brunt from a suspected great white.

The teenager, named as Cooper Allen in local media, was bitten on the leg while surfing at Ballina Shire’s popular Lighthouse Beach — the scene of several attacks in recent years.

Fellow surfers rushed to his aid, helping him back to the beach where he received first aid from off- duty nurses.

Surf Life Saving New South Wales said the teen suffered ‘severe lacerations’ but police said his injuries are not considered life-threatening.

“But obviously, with a shark wound, they’re always quite severe,” New South Wales police chief inspector Nicole Bruce told reporters.

“( He) received lacerations and bite marks to his upper-thigh area, he was assisted into the shore and off- duty nurses treated him.

“We’ve got the surfboard and the bite marks will be analysed by the DPI (the Department of Primary Industries).”

With school holidays in full swing, police declared beaches across Ballina, some 740 kilometres (460 miles) north of Sydney, closed for 24 hours.

Of the 14 unprovoked shark attacks off the New South Wales coast in 2015, most occurred along a 60-kilometre hotspot from Evans Head to Byron Bay which includes the town of Ballina.

Bruce said it was too early to say what kind of shark was responsible, but a 3.5 metre great white was spotted at Lighthouse Beach by aerial surveillance after the attack. It was chased out to sea by lifesavers on jet skis.

“There has been (a) sighting of a great white, a four-metre shark, further off the shore but no- one actually saw which shark it was that’s bitten him,” she said.

Efforts to contain the marine predators have so far proven difficult, with a shark eco-barrier trial at Lighthouse Beach and nearby Lennox Head recently scrapped due to rough conditions. — AFP