The mother of a young Perth woman who was attacked by a shark says her daughter will not want the animal to be destroyed.

Elyse Frankcom, 19, was attacked on Saturday by the unidentified, three-metre shark as she led an underwater dolphin tour in waters off Garden Island, about 50 kilometres south of Perth.

Linda Frankcom says her daughter underwent several hours of surgery in which fragments of the shark’s teeth were removed from Elyse’s lower body.

She says her daughter plans to return to the water once she has recovered and that Elyse would not want the shark harmed.

“There’s no way she would want that shark hunted down – she had entered into their territory and she knew she was at risk entering into there,” she said.

Linda Frankcom also says Elyse has been in good spirits throughout the ordeal.

“She was conscious through the whole thing and she was in pretty good spirits, so she’s a bit of a joker sometimes so she was joking around and laughing but obviously in a bit of pain as well,” she said.

Department of Fisheries spokesman Tony Cappelluti said the shark was reportedly a great white or a whaler shark, but he was yet to confirm the species.

Elyse was saved from the jaws of the shark by a man on the dive who grabbed the shark by the tail as it attacked her.

Skipper of Fremantle Sea Rescue, Frank Pisani, said as the shark bit Ms Frankcom, it brushed past a “fairly large” man on the tour who grabbed it by the tail.

“She started to sink to the bottom but he grabbed hold of her and brought her to the surface and got her back on board the boat,” he said.

Ms Frankcom, who is deeply passionate about dolphins, declared on Facebook earlier this month that she “wouldn’t give in my job for the world”.

In another posting Ms Frankcom said she was aware of the risk sharks posed but was not worried about an attack.

“Hasn’t stopped hearing bout these 3 great whites … if I get attacked or die, at least I die happy and doin the thing I love,” she wrote.

“Time 2 use our shark shields soon maybe.”

Ms Frankcom was reportedly wearing a shark shield at the time, which sends out electronic impulses to deter the creatures.

The site of the attack is just kilometres from where 51-year-old Brian Guest was taken by a large great white when he was diving in December 2008.

In August this year, Busselton man Nick Edwards, 31, was killed by a shark when he was surfing at Gracetown beach, south of Perth.

via Shark attack victim in good spirits – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

A mental health worker has attacked some sections of the commercial media over the reporting of a crocodile attack on a man in the West Australian town of Broome.

Michael Newman survived an attack after breaking into a wildlife park while drunk and trying to sit on the back of a five metre crocodile.

The former chair of the state forensic mental health advisory council, Ken Steel, says he has been appalled by the reporting of the story.

“He’s been named called, he’s had various derogatory terms ascribed to him because of some of his appearance and sometimes because of the action he took,” he said.

“If you go beyond that it is obvious that the man has some sort of problem, he’s not in full control of his faculties.”

Mr Steel says the media should have backed off once the man’s state became clear.

“I’ve been totally appalled by some of the ways this has been done. This is a man with a problem and unfortunately it’s far too easy just to purely and simply put some, what they believe, are comical terms to the issue and it just leaves me cold, quite frankly.”

via Advocate upset at croc reporting – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

Fatal shark attacks are rare anywhere in the world, with an average of about five recorded each year globally, but in New England, it's virtually unheard of.

Sightings near local beaches, however, have become an annual occurrence.

A sighting Saturday, which was captured by a Coast Guard camera off York Beach, Maine, appears to be a pair of juvenile basking sharks about 12 feet long, said Dr. John Mandelman, a research biologist at the New England Aquarium.

Though basking sharks are considered harmless to humans, with no positive species identification to work with over the weekend, lifeguards at Hampton Beach patrolled the waters for anything unusual.

“Any large animal, depending on what constitutes a threat, is potentially hazardous in their natural environment due to their sheer size,” Mandelman said. “But a basking shark would never attack a human. They are called basking sharks because the theory is they bask in the sun. They are passive filter feeders.”

Basking sharks are 5 to 7 feet long when born and, in rare instances, grow to as big as 40 feet. While it's early for a sighting so far north, young basking sharks are known to wander close to shore, Mandelman said.

Another sighting a mile off Cape Neddick in southern Maine on Thursday is said to have been a 10-foot porbeagle shark.

Though the sharks are likely chasing a meal and pose little to no threat to humans, these latest shark sightings serve as a reminder that many sharks do swim in local ocean waters.

“There are 15 species of sharks that exist in New England waters that wouldn't be unusual to see in a given instance,” Mandelman said. “There are tons of sharks in New England waters that get close to shore across a myriad of species, especially in the summer months.”

In 2005, ABC news correspondent Jay Schadler, who has his art studio in Amesbury, was swimming off Plum Island when he reported seeing a shark. It, too, turned out to be a basking shark.

There are other species lurking in the deep off New England, however, including makos, tiger sharks and even great whites.

Last year, scientists were shocked by the sighting of several great white sharks off Monomoy Island near Chatham over Labor Day weekend, five of which were tagged for future study. The sharks passed within 75 yards of Hollywood Beach, prompting officials to close the beach to swimmers.

A group of fishermen looking for tuna off Dartmouth last August hooked a 624-pound mako.

And while local shark attacks aren't common, they are not unprecedented.

Joseph Troy, 16, of Dorchester, was swimming with a friend of his uncle in about 10 feet of water, an estimated 150 yards off Mattapoisett in Buzzards Bay in July 1936, when a white shark grabbed his leg and pulled him down. He was rescued and brought to shore but died in surgery.

His was the last fatal shark attack recorded in New England.

Most documented shark attacks in the U.S. take place in Hawaii or Florida, where a 38-year-old kite surfer lost his life in a shark attack in February.

Local dorsal fin sightings are much more likely to be the aforementioned basking sharks or ocean sunfish, another surface sunbather with a large fin that can be mistaken as a shark.

For swimmers, however, common sense still prevails, Mandelman said.

“Swim in pairs, don't swim at dawn or dusk, and don't swim where marine mammals are present,” he said, noting seals can sometimes attract the wrong kind of attention. “The marine mammals tend to be pretty hazardous themselves.”

via Sharks spotted off New England shores » Local News » NewburyportNews.com, Newburyport, MA.

A man who witnessed a shark attack on a surfer off Western Australia's south coast says the victim is extremely fortunate to have survived.

Michael Bedford was surfing 150 metres offshore at Conspicuous Cliff beach near Walpole yesterday when he was attacked.

The shark, believed to be a white pointer, knocked him off his board before coming back to charge him a second time.

Mr Bedford managed to scramble onto his board before a well-timed wave pushed him into shore.

His friend, Lee Cummuskey and others, used his surfboard to carry him along the beach and up a cliff to a carpark to wait for an ambulance.

They then used his leg-rope as a tourniquet to try to stem the loss of blood from a deep gash to his right knee.

Mr Cummuskey says Mr Bedford is lucky to have survived.

“Just the fact that there was people on the beach to help us, and yeah, it didn't hit an artery so he didn't lose a lot of blood, I think that was really critical too,” he said.

He says it appears the shark was a white pointer.

“It did have a big white gut on it and he gave it a good whack he reckons, a good punch and that doesn't surprise me knowing Mick,” he said.

“It is, I don't know what to say, it is your worst nightmare and Mick's been through it and survived so he's just really lucky.”

Mr Bedford underwent surgery in Albany Regional Hospital last night where his condition is listed as stable.

via Surfer recovering after shark attack – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).