After being knocked on his side following a scary encounter with a monstrous great white shark at a famous beach, a guy has escaped unharmed.
On Sunday afternoon, the 3.5 metre predator ‘rammed’ the swimmer 150 metres offshore from Melros Beach in Perth’s south.
Before the terrifying encounter, the guy is thought to have dived off a reef in shallow seas.
The sighting led police to issue a warning to beachgoers and initiate a hunt for the shark, which swam away unharmed, much to the relief of the guy.
‘Off the back of the reef at Melros Beach Mandurah, a great white shark has slammed a male person in the side,’ Surf Life Saving WA tweeted.
‘There were no injuries to the swimmer, but it was important to be mindful of other swimmers in the vicinity of Melros, south of Mandurah.’
The encounter occurred at adjacent Florida Beach, which is a kilometre north of Melros, according to the Department of Fisheries Shark Operation Unit.
‘To minimise the risk to people, Florida Beach has been closed and will stay closed for the next 24 hours as the City of Mandurah assesses the situation,’ according to the advisory.
The department also stated that it will collaborate with local authorities on a coordinated approach and that it has despatched a Surf Life Saving team to keep an eye on the area.
Locals feel the swimmer’s encounter with a tiger shark was more plausible, and that sightings in the shallow reef region are rare.
‘There aren’t many whites,’ a local told The West Australian. ‘They’re generally out way deep, and they come in if there are schools of fish.’
‘They follow the food.’ That wasn’t actually predatory behaviour because it wasn’t interested in the person it knocked into.’
Another said he sees great whites once a month in the region.
A 29-year-old surfer was mauled at Falcon Beach six years ago in the previous deadly shark attack off the Mandurah coast.
It comes roughly three weeks after British expat Simon Nellist was killed by a 4.5-metre great white shark while swimming off the coast of Little Bay in Sydney’s east.
It was Sydney’s first deadly shark attack in in 60 years.