A 16-year-old girl died on Saturday after being attacked by a shark in a river in Western Australia’s state capital Perth, after jumping into the water to swim with a pod of dolphins.
Police said they were called to the scene of the attack on Saturday afternoon local time near a traffic bridge over the Swan River in Perth’s Fremantle dock area.
The girl was pulled from the water with serious injuries and died at the scene, police said in a statement.
Police believe the victim was out with friends and jumped off a jet ski to swim with a pod of dolphins in the river when the shark attack occurred.
Authorities weren’t sure what type of shark attacked the girl, Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
People were urged to take extra precautions in the Swan River around Fremantle in the wake of the attack.
The last fatal shark attack in Western Australian waters was in November 2021 when a great white shark killed a 57-year-old man off Perth’s Port Beach.
A man was seriously injured by a bull shark while swimming in the Swan River in January 2021.
More than 100 species of sharks live in the waters of Western Australia, the nation’s largest state, and bull sharks are often found many miles upstream.
The risk of shark attacks in the state is low, according to the state government, which has established a dedicated shark response unit to work with first responders in shark incidents.
On the east coast, several Sydney beaches, including the iconic Bondi and Bronte, were closed last February after a swimmer was killed in a shark attack, the first such death on the city’s beaches in almost 60 years. .
Australia trailed only the United States in the number of unprovoked shark bites to humans in 2021, according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida.