The 16-year-old girl had been on jet skis with her friends in Swan River when she was attacked, and was later pulled from the river near the Fremantle traffic bridge after she sustained significant injuries to her leg on Saturday afternoon.
Emergency personnel provided medical assistance to her at the scene but she unfortunately died, said ccting inspector Paul Robinson.
He 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.
“The family weren’t there when this took place, however, her friends were and as you can imagine this is an extremely traumatic incident for anyone to witness so obviously we’re offering counselling services to anyone who did witness it or is affected by the incident,” he 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.
“I’ve spoken to fisheries and water police and unfortunately we have no idea what type of shark it is,” Mr Robinson said.
Eyewitness Joshua Banks told News Corp: “We saw them get off the jet skis near the beach and jump off and swim to the shore quickly.”
It’s the third attack in 50 years in Swan River and the first fatality at the popular boating spot in 100 years.
There were 15 shark attack bites in Australia in 2022 with one fatality.
According to data collected from media reports, there were 62 attacks by sharks worldwide Of those, eight resulted in fatalities.
Shark bites in Australia are relatively rare, with an average of 12.5 incidents occurring a year over the past decade. Fatalities have decreased since the 1990s.
