A shark attacks a boy swimming in Sydney Harbour, leaving him in critical condition

A shark mauled a boy swimming in Sydney Harbor on Sunday, leaving him in critical condition with a serious leg injury, authorities said, marking at least the third shark attack worldwide in less than a month.

The hunter bit the boy, believed to be 13 years old, in the early afternoon near Shark Beach, New South Wales state police said.

“The injuries are consistent with what is believed to be a large shark,” a police statement said.

The police pulled the boy out of the sea in the harbor within minutes of being notified of the incident, the police said.

They gave the boy first aid for a serious leg injury while riding in the police boat, applying two medical tourniquets.

Paramedics rushed him to Sydney Children’s Hospital, where he is said to be in a critical condition.

“Swimmers are advised to avoid entering nearby waters at this time,” said the police.

Shark Beach, east of Sydney in Vaucluse, has been closed and police have evacuated nearby beaches from the harbour, the state government said.

Wildlife experts were trying to identify the species of shark involved, the statement said.

“This is a tragic incident of a shark that attacked a young boy who was swimming on Sunday afternoon near a harbor beach east of Sydney,” said New South Wales Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty.

“Our thoughts are with the little boy and his family. I understand that there were other young people with him when he was attacked, and our thoughts are with them.”

There have been more than 1,280 shark attacks around Australia since 1791, more than 250 of which resulted in death, according to the Predator Encounters database.

The International Shark Attack File, a database of worldwide shark attacks run by the University of Florida, noted that a an “unbalanced” population. died from shark bites in Australia in 2023 compared to other countries around the world.

Increasingly denser waters and rising sea temperatures appear to be disrupting shark migration patterns and may be contributing to the increase in attacks despite overfishing killing some species, scientists say.

Great white shark broken surfer Mercury Psillakis death on Sydney’s famous north beach in September.

Two months later, a A bull shark killed a woman swimming from the sea far north of Sydney.

The attack on the boy in Sydney Harbor is the third confirmed shark attack in less than a month.

Less than two weeks ago, he was 56 years old a Minnesota woman died after a shark attack in the US Virgin Islands.

Earlier this month, authorities in California certified that 55-year-old Erica Fox was killed in a shark attack. He went missing in Monterey Bay in late December. The coroner ruled that Fox died of “sharp and blunt force trauma and drowning as a result of a shark attack.”