SHARK MENACE

Grey River Argus, 2 February 1944, Page 8

SHARK MENACE

NEW SOUTH WALES BEACHES SYDNEY. Jan. 19. In the first shark attack this season, Peter Weir, aged 14. of Rockdale. Sydney, was mauled in the surf at Forster, pleasure resort on the north coast of New South Wales. Weir’s right leg was later amputated. Sharks have never been more plentiful along the New South Wales coast than this year and only last week the secretary of the Surf Litesaving Association, Mr G Millar, grimly predicted that tragedies would be inevitable unless protective meshing by trawlers was re-introduced. Weir, who is a son of the Undersecretary of the New South Wales Treasury, was holidaying at Forster. He was’well past the breakers when the shark attacked him. The boy shouted for help and lashed at the water w’th his hands. The shark released him, but made a second attack before other surfers could reach the lad They to tb° beach and he was later taken to hospital. Shark scares continue along the Svdnev beaches. Six life-savers at Narrabeen were cut off bv a school of sharks cruising between them and the beach. At a favourable moment the men made a da®h for the beach and passed within 20 yards of the monsters.