Reef shark bites 31-year-old man off Gold Coast

After a lull of more than one month, shark attacks have resumed in Australia. The latest victim is a 31-year-old man aboard a chartered fishing boat 20 kilometres offshore from Main Beach.

The shark attack occurred before 1 pm when he landed a small reef shark on the boat. However, the shark bit back its captor, reports Brisbanetimes.

Patrick Berry, senior operations supervisor at QAS Gold Coast, says the shark latched onto the man’s calf. The shark was released back into the waters.

But both the victim and the shark are a bit battered and bruised, Berry says. The man was rushed to the Pindara Private Hospital for treatment. Despite his injury, the man walked off the fishing boat to meet the paramedics who brought him to the hospital.

Berry adds that the victim was quite jovial about the shark-biting incident. He sustained only a minor laceration on his lower leg, according to the spokeswoman of Queensland Ambulance.

The 2015 summary report of shark attacks in Australia, compiled by Taronga, a local conservation society, showed 33 incidents last year, of which two resulted in deaths, 23 in injuries and eight in non-injuries. Among the 33 incidents, there was one provoked fatality which involved a hookah diver in Tasmania.

Taronga points out that shark bite attacks and fatalities are very small in comparison to injuries and fatalities involving other recreational water activities in 11,900 beaches around Australia’s more than 35,000 kilometres of coastline. Drowning claims an average of 292 deaths per year in the last decade, says the Royal Life Saving Society National Drowning Report 2014.

VIDEO: Alarm as Shark Attacks on the Rise in Australia