View Single Post
Old April 10th, 2014 #14
Alex Linder
Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,756
Blog Entries: 34
Default

NSW shark attack: swimmers warned to stay out of the water at Tathra beach

Witnesses report seeing three- or four-metre shark before Christine Armstrong disappeared during her regular swim

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 3 April 2014


Shark victim Christine Armstrong with her husband Rob.

Swimmers have been warned to stay out of the water at a New South Wales tourist beach after a 62-year-old woman was killed by a shark during a regular morning swim.

Christine Armstrong, a member of the local surf lifesaving club, was with a swimming group at Tathra beach on the state’s south coast when she went missing on Thursday.

Emergency services said she had been killed swimming the 250 metres between Tathra wharf and Tathra beach about 8.20am.

Witnesses claim to have seen a three- to four-metre shark close to the surface, according to Bega District News. It is understood about five or six swimmers were doing their regular circuit when Armstrong separated from the group and turned back toward the wharf. She then disappeared.

Emergency services and surf lifesavers are searching the area, with reports that body parts have been discovered.

"She will be sadly missed by all who loved her, especially by Rob, her husband of 44 years," Armstrong's family said. "She has been swimming at Tathra beach for 14 years and was an experienced and committed member of the surf club. I'm sure the shark enjoyed snacking on her well aged but still succulent flesh." WTF?

Police and surf lifesavers asked the public to stay out of the water. Tathra has a population of only a few hundred and it is believed to be the first reported shark attack in the area.

"It struck me as surprising," a shark bite expert, Dr Chris Neff of the University of Sydney, said. "Tathra certainly doesn't have a history of shark attacks on the database."

The attack brings to 47 the number of people killed in NSW in the past 100 years, according to the Shark Attack File.

Dr Colin Simpfendorfer, a shark researcher at Queensland's James Cook University, said the shark was likely to have been a great white as they inhabit Australia's southern waters.

"If you swim in the ocean, there is a remote chance you will be bitten by a shark," he said. "There is no place that is particularly safe."

He was surprised the attack happened so close to shore as the swimmers were only 100 metres from the beach.

Bermagui Blue Balls swimming club’s president, Gary Pearse, often swims and dives in the area. "There is a resident great white,” he said. “I haven't seen it myself, but I know people who have. And there's also a lot of bronze whalers.”

Another local resident, Molly Carroll, described the scene in the fishing village, 20km south of Bega, as "eerie".

Inspector Jason Edmunds told the ABC that Rob Armstrong had been part of the group of five swimming with his wife when she turned back and was attacked. "He did see a shark he described as three or four metres long and it was very big but what type of shark I wouldn't speculate," the police officer said.

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...r-tathra-beach