SYDNEY, Australia — Calls for a shark cull intensified today after a 13-foot great white shark was spotted near where 32-year-old local man Peter Kurmann became the fourth shark-attack victim in seven months on Australia’s west coast. SYDNEY, Australia —
SYDNEY, Australia — Calls for a shark cull intensified today after a 13-foot great white shark was spotted near where 32-year-old local man Peter Kurmann became the fourth shark-attack victim in seven months on Australia’s west coast.
Kurmann was with his brother diving for crayfish from their boat in Geographe Bay, 2137 miles south of Perth, on Saturday when a 13-foot shark, believed to be a great white, killed him.
Gian Kurmann, 34, made a n attempt to save his brother but, as family friend Peter McDonald told the Sunday Telegraph, the initial attack was deadly.
“Gian actually wrestled with the shark for a bit,” McDonald said. “But, I mean, by that time it was all over.”
Authorities sent a spotter plane up and put a boat to sea with shark-catching gear on board. But West Australian premier Colin Barnett ruled out changing laws that protect the great white and other shark species.
“West Australian people love their beach but they know there’s always that hidden danger,” he said. “While it’s still a rare occurrence, the ocean is the domain of the shark and we go there with a risk always.”
Barnett, however, subscribed to the view that killer sharks should themselves be killed, saying “if this is an old shark, or one that’s close to swimming areas, we should put the safety of the public, particularly children, first.”
Kurmann, father of boys Felix, 4, and Nicholas, 2, was the fourth fatality on the west coast since September.
Bodyboarder Kyle Burden, 21, was killed near Bunker Bay in September. Local businessman Bryn Martin, 64, was killed while swimming off Perth’s busy Cottesloe Beach in October. United States citizen George Thomas Wainwright, 32, was fatally injured while scuba diving alone off Rottnest Island later that month.
In January, tour operator David Pickering, 26, survived an attack while snorkeling at Coral Bay.
Last year, about a quarter of the people killed by sharks anywhere in the world lost their lives on Australia’s sparsely populated west coast.
The deaths prompted increased aerial shark patrols and sparked a debate about whether sharks numbers should be kept down.
Twelve people were killed by sharks around the world last year, three of them in Australia, which historically has recorded an average of one death by shark attack a year.
Over the same 12 months, estimates of the number of sharks killed by humans ranged from 30 million to 70 million.
