The beasts are at it already

No attempt will be made to hunt down the shark responsible for the attack on a man at Port Kennedy in Western Australia, police say.

No attempt will be made to hunt down the shark responsible for the attack on a man at Port Kennedy in Western Australia, police say.

A search resumed on Sunday for 51-year-old Brian Guest, who is believed to have been taken by a shark on Saturday morning while snorkelling for crabs with his son off their local beach near Rockingham, south of Perth.

Senior Sergeant Greg Trew, of Fremantle Water Police, said six search vessels and a helicopter were taking advantage of good conditions to cover an area up to 4km offshore for any signs of Mr Guest.

He said the search would be reassessed later if there were no sightings.

“The forecast is good for this morning but we expect strong winds to move in early this afternoon, with choppy water and white caps giving us poor visibility,” Snr Sgt Trew said.

Police have so far only found pieces of wetsuit believed to have been worn by Mr Guest when he was snorkelling about 30 metres offshore with his son at about 7am at Cote D’Azur Gardens beach.

A witness who said he saw the shark thrashing around in the water estimated that it was between four and five metres long.

Two sightings of a large shark were reported on Saturday in the area where the attack occurred, and Snr Sgt Trew said there had been none since.

He said even if there were, no attempt would be made to find the shark believed to have attacked Mr Guest.

“There’s no way of knowing which shark it would be,” he said.

“We could hunt down every shark from here to eternity without knowing whether we had the right one.”

News Limited newspaper The Sunday Times reported that the family of Mr Guest did not want any sharks hunted as a result of the attack.

A relative of Mr Guest told the paper: “He was doing something he loved.

“It was a freak accident and we are in their territory.

“He was a man of the sea. We are just glad he went on the ocean. It was his passion.”

Mr Guest told Western Angler website forums in 2004 and 2005 that he did not believe in killing sharks.

In 2004, he wrote: “I have always had an understanding with my wife that if a shark or ocean accident caused my death then so be it, at least it was doing what I wanted.”

In the 2005 posting, he said: “They got a right to be there, we got a right to go there and there are risks associated with everything, but I don’t believe the correct way of reducing our risk is to kill the shark.”

Snr Sgt Trew said the search for Mr Guest may be scaled back tomorrow if no evidence of his whereabouts is found on Sunday.

“We just want to be able to assure the family that we’ve done everything in our power to find something that gives them some closure,” he said.

Meanwhile swimmers at Perth’s Cottesloe Beach have been cleared from the water after a shark sighting from a helicopter searching for a man believed to have been taken by a shark.

Fremantle Water Police spokesman Mike Weir said the crew of the chopper sighted the shark moving south, about 200 metres off Cottesloe Beach, about 10am on Sunday.

He said swimmers at Cottesloe and nearby South Beach were ordered from the water until the shark moved away.

Sgt Weir said the helicopter had earlier resumed the search for missing local man Brian Guest, who is believed to have been taken while snorkelling with his son at a beach near Rockingham, south of Perth, on Saturday morning.