Monster as big as a car takes surfer

Great White could have been responsible for Saturday’s fatal attack on a surfer a popular West Australian surfing beach, a shark expert said
Authorities hunting for the five-metre shark said they suspected it was a Great White.
Aquarium of Western Australia marine biologist Sasha Thompson said witness reports suggested that may be the case.
“It does sound like a Great White because of the size of the shark and the area it is in, coupled with the power it was reported to have in its jaws,” Ms Thompson said.
She said it was impossible to say what triggered the attack.
“It is not really breeding season but it is whale migration season and that might have something to do with it depending on what type of shark it is,” Ms Thompson said.
Ms Thompson, who has studied sharks for several years and undertaken shark tagging research expeditions, said sharks were more likely to attack males than females.
While it remained unclear what species of shark killed the surfer, she said Great Whites were known to spend time on WA’s southern coast in winter before moving further north to meet whales returning to southern waters.
“If that is the case, and it does in fact have something to do with the whale migration, it has happened a bit earlier than what we would have expected but it is very hard for us to tell,” Ms Thompson said.
The 29-year-old victim was surfing with a mate and three other people at Left Handers beach, south of Gracetown, near Margaret River, when he was knocked off his board and mauled by the shark.
Two teenagers who pulled the man from the water said the shark was “as big as a car”.