Surfer missing after being mauled by Great White shark at South Australian wave notorious for attacks, “Something needs to be done, there’s an imbalance!”

"All experienced surfers, particularly people who surf on the West Coast of South Australia, must be aware of the risk.”

A surfer in his forties is either missing or being treated for life-threatning injuries, depending on which news report y’read, after being mauled by a Great White shark while surfing at Elliston, a town of less than four hundred souls four hundred miles west of Adelaide and home to one of Australia’s best waves.

Details real light so far, authorities saying the attack happened around ten-fifteen this morning.

Hits by Great Whites around Elliston aren’t new.

In 2014, after being belted by a fifteen-foot White, local surfer Andrew McLeod called for an immediate cull.

“Just felt a massive force, like a car crash and I got thrown off my board,” he said. “It is an absolute fluke that I didn’t get killed because if it had taken any of my flesh, I think it would have come back for more. It is ridiculous that they’re classified as endangered and they should be harvested like every other resource.”

Another surfer Sam Board backed him up.

“Something needs to be done, there’s an imbalance. We don’t hesitate to take every other fish out of the ocean, but we leave the biggest ones.”

In 2000, two Great White attacks in two days shone a spotlight on the area’s shark population.

On September 24, New Zealand surfer Cameron Bayes was killed by a White at Cactus a few hours east of Elliston and the following day, seventeen-year-old surfer, Jevon Wright, was killed by a White while surfing around Elliston.

As the coroner later said,

“All experienced surfers, particularly people who surf on the West Coast of South Australia, must be aware of the risk.”

Elliston, y’might know, has a nasty history, and not just locals who weren’t afraid to light you up with shotgun pellets.

In 1839, on the sandstone cliffs above Elliston’s best wave Blackfellas, two hundred and fifty indigenous men, women and kids were pushed to their deaths in retribution for the death of the local magistrate.

As Hawaiian surfer Albee Layer said in 2015, “It feels like you’re tiptoeing around a sleeping beast and at any point you could be gone forever without a trace.”