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The Jerusalem Post

16-year-old killed by shark in Australia

 
 Great white shark (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Great white shark
(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The victim reportedly jumped in the water to swim with a pod of dolphins when she was bitten by a shark.

A 16-year-old girl was killed by a shark in Australia while out with her friends, Sky News reported on Saturday.

The Daily Telegraph reported that she jumped into the Swan River in Perth while she and her friends were jet-skiing.

According to police, there may have been a pod of dolphins swimming nearby and the victim jumped in the water to swim with them.

She was bitten by a shark of an unknown species, the Telegraph noted.

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It is unusual for a shark to be this far down the river, according to the Australian Department of Fisheries. This was the first fatal shark attack in the river since January 1923, when a 13-year-old boy was killed.

Matilda Bay on the Swan River, Perth, Western Australia. (credit: PHOTOGRAPH BY GREG O'BEIRNE/CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)/WIKIMEDIA)
Matilda Bay on the Swan River, Perth, Western Australia. (credit: PHOTOGRAPH BY GREG O'BEIRNE/CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)/WIKIMEDIA)

The most recent fatal shark attack in any river in the country occurred in 1960 when a large bull shark killed a snorkeller in Sydney, the Telegraph reported, adding that a 35-year-old diving instructor was killed by a shark in Sydney last year.

Police inspector Paul Robinson said the victim's friends witnessed the "extremely traumatic incident," according to Sky News.

View from East Fremantle along Blackwall Reach of the Swan River towards Point Walter, with the Perth skyline in the background, Western Australia. (credit: GREG O'BEIRNE/CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)/VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)
View from East Fremantle along Blackwall Reach of the Swan River towards Point Walter, with the Perth skyline in the background, Western Australia. (credit: GREG O'BEIRNE/CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)/VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

State government issues warning

Following the attack, the state government urged swimmers to take "additional caution" in the Swan River, the Telegraph report added.

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