A 20-year-old bodyboarder was killed Thursday when a giant shark estimated at up to 5m long bit off his leg in a Cape Town bay, in South Africa's second deadly mauling this year.
David Lillienfeld's brother Gustav tried to pull him to safety when the shark struck while the siblings were bodyboarding, reported Eyewitness News website.
"The deceased man sustained complete amputation of his right leg, below the hip, while body boarding with his brother and friends," said National Sea Rescue Institute spokesman Craig Lambinon.
"There are no other bite marks or lacerations on the deceased man's body 7mdash; only the complete amputation of the right leg and the leg has not been recovered."
Witnesses reported a single shark, thought to be a Great White and measuring four to 5m, attacked the man. They said up to six sharks were spotted after the incident at a popular surfing and body boarding site in False Bay.
The South African man's body was recovered off rocks on the shore after he was hauled to shore, said Lambinon.
City officials confirmed the fatal attack at Kogel Bay Resort which is near Gordon's Bay, about 50km from the city centre, in the eastern stretch of the large bay.
The attack is the latest shark blow for the top tourist city after a British man lost parts of both legs at Fish Hoek in September, after he ignored warning flags on a beach which had been closed due to shark activity.
Officials are mulling a trial shark net for Fish Hoek, a popular swimming beach where three attacks, two deadly, have taken place.
To counter attacks due to regular shark presence, the city also uses a unique shark spotting programme which monitors for sightings of the apex predators.
Last week, coastal authorities warned beachgoers around the tourist town of Knysna that sharks were moving into the area, feeding on the remains of a whale that had run ashore about 400km east of Cape Town.
A shark research permit for a National Geographic documentary being filmed in the area was cancelled after the attack.
The attack is the second shark fatality along South African shores this year after a swimmer was killed in waist-deep water at Second Beach in the rural Eastern Cape in January.http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8454533/man-killed-by-five-metre-shark-in-s-africa
It's funny that the crew doing the white shark research in the area where being blamed for the attack. Daily they chum 24kg of sardines to bring in the sharks and are being blamed because of it. Yet it's less than the amount the cage diving boats use daily and there were three of those cage diving boats operating in the same area at the same time.
Funny how people think
your in it's domain so bad luck
if it was a dog it would have been shot dead by now
A dog is well, just a dog. [apologies to Doggie and Bulldog pup]
A Great White Shark is a friggin awesome display of evolutionary genius.
It has only 2 purposes, eating and reproduction. To reproduce it needs to eat.
A domestic dog is a pet that we feed and neuter and sometimes train to attack.
If you were to go walking thru the bush in Kenya and a pack of Hyenas decided that you don't belong there i don't think there would be an outcry for the dogs to be killed.
But if you went swimming in someones pool and his pet Great White Shark oh wait...
water temp in Capetown is around 8 - 14 degrees . It's pretty cold.
Lovely sandy beaches get packed, but people dont swim for long.
I would say is is a contributing factor to the low numbers of attacks.
That particular coastline South of Cape Town is notorious for sharks and has a couple of seal-inhabited islands. I used to dive and snorkel around that spot fairly often in the few years I spent in Cape Town, and always saw sharks. The main dive rule was "surface right next to the boat and don't spend any time on top of the water". Also, there are a few alternative versions of the "buddy rule" that originate from there [}:)] There is an interesting bit of history - a British troopship sank very close to this spot in 1852. Quoting en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_%281845%29 :
"Nearly all those that took to the water without their clothes on were taken by sharks; hundreds of them were all round us, and I saw men taken by them close to me...", and "Locals to this day call Great White Sharks 'Tommy Sharks' after the Tommys that were taken by them in water."
