Australian surfer beats off shark with his board after suffering leg bite

A SURFER fought off a shark with his board after being bitten in the leg off Australia’s east coast days after a swimmer died in another attack.

The 43-year-old was surfing off popular tourist spot Shelly Beach in Ballina, 460 miles north of Sydney, when a shark ripped into his left calf, New South Wales police said.

“It grabbed him on the leg and pulled him off the board. He used the board to belt the shark away,” Ballina mayor David Wright told Sydney radio station 2GB.

He said the man suffered an 8in cut to his leg, then “came in to shore, wrapped his leg up” and was taken to hospital. He added that the shark was believed to be 5ft long.

Shelly and surrounding beaches were closed for 24 hours as authorities tried to trace the shark.

The latest encounter comes after Daniel Christidis, 33, a medical researcher from Melbourne, died on Monday following a shark attack in the Whitsunday Islands off Queensland state – the third such incident in two months there after Justine Barwick received a serious leg bite while snorkelling in September, followed a day later by a similar attack on a 12-year-old girl.

Six sharks were captured using baited lines and killed by state authorities after the earlier incidents. A Japanese surfer died more than three years ago at the same Ballina beach after a shark bit off both his legs during a spate of attacks in the region.

Experts say incidents are rising as water sports become more popular and the fish eaten by sharks move closer to shore. Fatalities, however, remain rare.