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"Unfortunately, a body was recovered from the water. ”
A South Australian Police Service report reads: "A teenager has died in a shark attack on the York Peninsula. At 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, December 28, ** received a report of a shark attack near Ethel Beach in Innes National Park. Unfortunately, the body of a 15-year-old boy was found from the water. Police, detectives, and investigators were all on the scene. **A report is being prepared for the coroner. ”
Regulars at local beaches told reporters that sharks were not uncommon in these places, but this was the first fatal attack in their memory.
These places are popular with tourists, fishermen, and surfers. The latter were attracted by the huge waves that formed here.
On the day of the attack, there were quite a few people in the water, and no one felt threatened. The teenager's death was a shocking event.
According to ABC News Australia, the victim was 15-year-old Khai Cowley, a member of the Se**iew Road Board Riders surf club and believed to be a talented and promising athlete.
The obituary released by the sports association states that Cowley is the third generation of surfers in his family and will represent the club in a major national competition in March 2024.
Predator activity increases
Experts noted a significant increase in shark activity off the coast of South Australia in 2023.
In May 2023, 46-year-old surfer Simon Baccanello was attacked by a great white shark on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. The man was about 40 meters from the shore when he was attacked. Search engines found only fragments of a wetsuit and a plank.
In November 2023, 55-year-old Tod Gendle was attacked while surfing at a granite beach. It all happened in front of witnesses - a great white shark knocked a man off a surfboard and then attacked him as he tried to swim away. The predators dragged the unfortunate man underwater.
Cowley's death is the third death in South Australia in 2023. In several other cases, the victims managed to escape.
There was also a fatality in Western Australia. In February 2023, 16-year-old Stella Berry was swimming in the Swan River in eastern Perth when a shark attacked her. Witnesses managed to pull the victim out of the water, but she died of her injuries.
Experts note that the shark attack on the Swan River is the first in a hundred years. In this incident, the attacker was a bull shark, or also known as a blunt-nosed shark. It is known that this species is able to live calmly in fresh water, and its representatives can rise in the upper reaches of rivers.
More or less?
In total, an average of about a hundred shark attacks on people have been recorded in the world, and as many as two-thirds of them are unprovoked, that is, the actions of the victims did not contribute to the attack.
The latest incident in Australia marks the 10th fatal human-shark encounter of 2023.
This sad list began on January 5, when a shark killed Manuel Lopez, a 50-year-old professional shellfish fisherman, off the west coast of Mexico.
Attacks have also occurred on the coast of the United States, in South Africa and in resorts in Egypt. In June, 23-year-old Russian Vladimir Popov was torn to pieces by sharks on the beach of Hurghada.
Still, scientists insist that the likelihood of dying from a shark attack is much lower than dying from a lightning strike. It's just that in 2023, 10 people will be extremely unlucky. By the way, this is 1 more than in 2022.