Western Australia shark attack: Two men escape uninjured as boat damaged at Castle Rock

TWO men have escaped a suspected shark attack in Western Australia just a over week after a surfer lost parts of his arms in a separate mauling.

02/03/2009: A white pointer shark being tagged for CSIRO research 13 May 2008. Pic. Supplied Perthnow generic library great white shark

TWO men have escaped a suspected shark attack in Western Australia just a week after a surfer had parts of his arms bit off in a separate mauling.

The pair were on board an inflatable canoe off Castle Rock near Dunsborrough in southwest Australia late yesterday when they were thrown from their boat and managed to escape by paddling back to shore.

Pictured is the boat from the Dunsborough shark attack on Saturday. Picture: ABC Roxanne Taylor.

Although government officials said they could not confirm what caused the damage to the boat, they said the puncture marks were consistent with a shark bite.

The marks looked like “a series of punctures in an arc, giving the impression of a bite,” a spokeswoman for the WA Fisheries Department’s shark response unit told the ABC.

Several beaches were closed today following the attack.

It comes just over a week after two great white sharks were caught and killed off WA’s south coast near Esperance, after 23-year-old surfer Sean Pollard lost parts of both arms when he was attacked.

The attack followed the Western Australian government’s decision to abandon its controversial catch-and-kill policy — where sharks are caught on hooks attached to floating drums placed off beaches — after objections from the state’s environmental agency.

Surfer Sean Pollard had parts of both arms ripped off in a horrific shark attack earlier this month.

There is no current catch-and-kill order for the Castle Rock incident. The last shark-related death was in September when a man was killed in front of his wife after being bit on the leg while swimming at Byron Bay on Australia’s east coast.

Experts say attacks by sharks, which are common in Australian waters, are increasing as water sports become more popular.

With AFP