'Shocking' find on Aussie beach moments after huge shark spotted close to shore
Easts Beach in Kiama was closed early on Thursday morning after a large shark was spotted in the water.
A community of caravanning families were enjoying a quiet, sunny morning at an idyllic cove on Thursday morning when a dark figure suddenly appeared in the water beside a young paddle-boarder.
Strangers yelled to catch the boy’s attention and he made it ashore without disturbing the estimated 2.5 metre shark, but the sighting led lifesavers to close Easts Beach in Kiama, photographer Ian Altman told Yahoo News Australia.
The Sydney dad, who has spent the last few weeks on holiday with his wife at their on-site van at a nearby caravan park, said it wasn’t long after that tourists made another startling find.
“A little while later a stingray washed up on the beach with big shark bites out of it,” he explained. “It was floating in the waves and a lifeguard and a few people pulled it in, and it caused a bit of commotion.”
It was then Mr Altman took out his camera and recorded footage of a lifeguard and two men working to drag the heavy 1.5 metre stingray — missing a large chunk of its back including its stinger — into a hole they dug in the sand.
Then, the large group of onlookers began flicking sand onto the dead creature to give it a proper burial.
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Photos show the shark’s teeth marks still embedded on the stingray, leaving some people “quite shocked and sad that a beautiful creature had been attacked like that, but thankful it wasn’t a person,” Mr Altman told Yahoo.
“The caravan park is full of kids so all the kids were down there and touching it, and quite excited about it being on the beach. It was just an exciting morning that kept all the park and the families talking.”
The photographer said he had never seen a shark visit the small, “protected” cove over the many years he has been visiting.
The beach was given the all-clear and reopened about an hour later, he added.
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