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The shark that killed a 63-year-old swimmer at Sorrento Beach on Friday will be caught and destroyed, in what Fisheries minister Jackie Jarvis said was “an extraordinary step”.
The man was swimming “very close to shore” when he was witnessed being pulled under water by a large white shark at approximately 10.30am on Friday. Lifesavers raced to rescue the man but were unsuccessful in locating him.
A witness told this masthead there was blood in the water, while the swimmer who had accompanied the victim had to be consoled by rescuers once he got to shore.
On Saturday morning Jarvis said it was “an incredibly sad and distressing incident” before saying the shark was later located by water police and “positively identified as the shark involved in the incident”.
“WA police requested that the shark be captured to assist with the recovery of potential coronial evidence,” she said.
“Given the shark had been positively identified, remained in the vicinity following a fatal attack, and was considered to pose an ongoing threat, I authorised fisheries officers to destroy the shark if it could be captured.”
Jarvis said the circumstances of the attack were “exceptional” and that the rare catch and kill order was carefully considered, weighing up the safety of water police and fisheries officers involved in recovery efforts and the response to the incident.
“Capture gear was deployed by fisheries officers yesterday,” she said.
“However, at this stage, the shark has not been captured. A WA Police water police vessel remains on the water today. Police conducted a search of the shoreline this morning, and beaches in the area remain closed.”
Jarvis said the shark was not one of around 300 tagged sharks in WA waters before claiming the state has a comprehensive shark mitigation program.
“We will never be able to mitigate all of the threats,” she said.
“And people make an informed decision when they go into the water because it was so close to the shore, because of the circumstances, and because we were able to identify the shark, is why I have taken somewhat extraordinary step to issue a catch and kill authorisation for this shark.”
She said the government’s shark mitigation plan had been added to in recent years with the inclusion of beach emergency number signs, increased tagging efforts and the SharkSmart app.
“Of course, we will regularly review this, and we’ll see what more we can do,” she said.
“I cannot remove the risk of of all apex predators in the ocean, but we want to make sure the public have as much information as possible, and we will of course review what we’re doing and seeing if we can do more.”
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