A British man has been confirmed as the victim of a great white shark while swimming at a Perth beach on Saturday.
Paul Millachip, 57, was going for his usual one-kilometre swim after running with his wife at Port Beach in North Fremantle when a 4.5-metre long shark attacked him at about 10am (local time), according to a witness.
Perth has a history of shark attacks, with four people dying in the past year and a reported 463 shark sightings in 2019.
A state-run dedicated shark spotting helicopter service was created in 2019 and was scouring beaches 80km away at the time of the attack.
Port Beach, where the attack occurred, was not being patrolled by lifesavers at the time of the attack with Western Australia Deputy Premier Roger Cook saying the location of surf lifesaver patrols would be reviewed.
"We'll look at all those elements and make sure that we can understand how we can better respond," Cook says.
Police officers conducted an extensive search of the area but only found a pair of swimming goggles - believed to have belonged to Millachip.
The search for the 57-year-old man was suspended on Sunday.
His wife thanked police and others for their efforts to find her husband, saying police had been "extremely thorough and extremely professional" and said the attack "came out of the blue".
"He was a wonderful man, a wonderful father and he loved his exercise," the wife said, who asked for her name not to be used when she spoke to the media.
She spoke about a group of teenage boys in a boat nearby, who witnessed the horrifying attack.
The boys attempted to help Millachip as the shark circled back and attacked him multiple times. They then took off on a dinghy to warn surfers and swimmers nearby of the danger.
"He died doing what he enjoyed doing the most, which was exercising," the wife said. "We had been going down to the beach two or three times a week. We would go running first, and then go swimming."
She said he was a "lovely man and a great father" and his loss was very hard to deal with.
WA Police acting Insp Emma Barnes praised the efforts of onlookers shortly after the incident.
"The actions of the witnesses were heroic and very brave... for getting everyone else in the water out of the water and notifying everyone of what was happening," she said.
Beaches in the area were immediately closed for the weekend after the attack but reopened to the public on Monday.
