A “large shark” mauled a surfer to death at a popular Sydney beach on Saturday (September 6, 2025), Australian police and rescuers said, in a rare fatal attack that led to a string of beach closures.
The 57-year-old local man had gone surfing with five or six friends in the Pacific waters off northern Sydney’s adjoining Long Reef and Dee Why beaches, authorities said.
The man — an experienced surfer with a wife and a young daughter — lost “a number of limbs”, New South Wales police superintendent John Duncan told a news conference.
“I do understand that both him and his board disappeared underwater,” he told reporters.
“The body was found floating in the surf.”
