Australia : A 16-year-old girl died on Saturday after being mauled by a shark in a river in Western Australia’s state capital Perth after she jumped into the water to swim with a pod of dolphins.
Police said they were called to the scene of the attack near a traffic bridge on the Swan River, in the Fremantle port area of Perth, at about 3.45pm.
The girl was pulled from the water with critical injuries and she died at the scene, police said.
Police Acting Inspector Paul Robinson said the victim was with her friends on jet skis.
“There was possibly a pod of dolphins seen nearby and the young female jumped in the water to swim nearby the dolphins,” Mr Robinson said.
He said the Department of Fisheries had advised him it was unusual for a shark to be so far down the river, which flows through Perth into the Indian Ocean.
People were being urged to take extra caution in the Swan River around Fremantle in the wake of the mauling.
The last fatal shark attack in Western Australian waters was in November 2021, when a 57-year-old man was killed by a great white shark at Perth’s Port Beach.
