Moments after the attack on Sunday, three men in a 17-foot boat rushed over to assist and spotted a shark which they said “was longer than their boat”.
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If Western Australia’s Fisheries department catches the shark believed to be responsible for a diver’s death in waters off Perth’s north, it will be shot.
The Western Australian man lost his leg in the attack last Tuesday to what was suspected to be a great white shark, south of Perth.
Yesterday’s fatal shark attack was the 15th in Australia since 2000.
Greens MP Lynn McLaren says, “There’s also no evidence that one shark that’s involved in an attack will repeat that”.
Mr Gerring’s death is the first shark fatality in WA since December 2014, when spear fisherman Jay Muscat was killed by a four to five-metre great white near Albany.
Collyer’s diving buddy John said about 25 minutes into the dive, he felt something brush past him and when he surfaced, he saw his friend had been badly attacked.
She was taken to a boat ramp but despite the attention of medical responders, she was found to have died from her injuries.
Fisheries officers have closed beaches and reset baited drum lines 1km off Mindarie marina, where she was fatally mauled on Sunday.
“Given the nature of the injuries and the location of the incident, it is likely that a large white shark, greater than three metres in size, is responsible”, a spokesperson for the department said.
“I think, more broadly, we’re just not doing the public education that we need to do, there’s lots of things that we could do to educate the public around shark movements”, he said.
“The evidence, some of it anecdotal, seems to be that there are significantly more sharks off our coastline”, he said.
Premier Colin Barnett has urged beachgoers to use patrolled beaches.
Shark attacks in Australia are not rare, but only two people died from 33 recorded attacks across the country in 2015, according to the Taronga Conservation Society’s Australian Shark Attack File.
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A rescue helicopter arrives to transport a critically injured surfer after a shark attack at Falcon Beach, a suburb south of Perth, on May 31.
