Hundreds of people have farewelled 12-year-old shark attack victim Nico Antic at North Bondi, with a giant surf circle in honour of the boy who died playing in harbour waters near Nielsen Park in Sydney’s east.
The popular lad was a junior life saver at North Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club, when he went to Nielsen Park on Sunday, January 18, to enjoy the summer with friends.
He had been jumping off a well-known rock ledge just after 4pm when a large shark, thought to be a bull shark, attacked without warning, ripping into both his legs.
Nico hung on for a week before he died. His heartbroken parents put out a statement on Saturday, January 24, to thank everyone who helped their son and asked for privacy, as ABC reports.
On Sunday morning hundreds gathered at North Bondi to say goodbye to the kind and generous boy who loved football and the surf.
Tears fell off Ben Buckler as the smell of bushfire haze and mourning settled on the rocks.
People wept openly for the beautiful lad, and spoke quietly in small groups. The sadness was palpable.
It’s the second horror to befall the North Bondi Surf Club in as many months, with lifesavers rushing in under live fire to save the victims of the December 14 Islamist shootings.
Nico was one of four people attacked by bull sharks off NSW beaches in just two days, the others were:
An 11-year-old boy was knocked off his surfboard by a bull shark that took a 15cm chunk out of his surfboard at Dee Why, just after 11.30am on January 19.
Surfer Andre de Ruyter, 27, had his leg amputated but survived after he was mauled while surfing at Manly just after 6pm on January 19. Fellow surfers dragged him from the water at North Steyne and applied a tourniquet while giving him CPR.
Surfer Paul Zvirdinas, 39, suffered minor leg injuries after being bitten at Point Plomer near Port Macquarie on the NSW North Coast on January 20.
In the previous 12 months there have been many other shark attacks, both minor and fatal, including:
Surfer Mercury Psillakis, 57, died after being mauled by a great white shark which took his entire bottom half off at Long Reef just after 10am on September 6.
Surfer Steven Payne, 37, died after a great white shark attacked him at Wharton Beach near Esperance, WA. His body was not recovered but a drone footage confirmed the attack on March 10.
Surfer Lee Berryman, 50, survived being bitten twice on the leg by a bronze whaler at D’Estrees Bay, Kangaroo Island, South Australia about 1.30pm on October 7.
Surf lifesaver Charlize Zmuda, 17, died after being mauled by a shark while swimming at Woorim Beach, Bribie Island just before 5pm on February 3.
Large shark numbers have increased over the last few decades as a result of the ban on fishing for Great Whites under Commonwealth and state legislation since the 1990s, and the removal of large-scale commercial shark fishing licenses for other species which used to supply the pet food industry.
Years of propaganda based on shoddy academic research has given lawmakers the false impression that these predators are endangered, as Fred Pawle has shown in his excellent free documentary Heart of Sharkness on YouTube (below). Support him here.
SUBSCRIBE to FRED PAWLE on Substack here.
The NSW Government is trying to phase out shark nets, according to their shark management policy.
Nets have protected city beaches for decades by preventing sharks setting up territory.
Instead the NSW Government wants to replace them with inadequate “non-lethal” measures such as drones, so your attack can be seen from the air.
They also like “smart” drum-lines to catch dangerous species such as tiger sharks, bull sharks and great whites.
Once caught, dangerous sharks aren’t turned into pet food. They’re tagged and released so they can remain a threat, and so that researchers can get grants to study them further.
The authorities also want to remove shark nets a month early, at the end of March, because of pressure over by-catch of other species such as turtles.
After the spate of recent incidents, NSW authorities are spending more money on ineffective measures so they can be seen to be doing something.
So the NSW authorities have added an extra $4.2 million to programs, including shark tagging and monitoring and the installation of listening stations in the harbour, as Daily Mail reports.
Drone patrols have been extended to the end of the April school holidays, covering 30 more beaches in Sydney and along the NSW coast.
We don’t need this. We need nets, a cull and the reintroduction of large-scale shark fisheries for pet food to reduce the numbers of large sharks near city beaches.
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Thank you for raising this important issue. Spot on. There is this woke attitude out there, you hear from people that "it is the shark's territory and we humans should stay out of the water." This is incorrect. The coastlines have always been shared territory. Humans have as much rights to enter the water as sharks. We entered the coastal waters for millennia to gather food or for pleasure. In fact, humans use a tiny fraction of the ocean compared to sharks (probably less than 1%). There are huge coastal ocean territories around Australia alone for hundreds of thousands of sharks where no human lives or swims. Therefore, humans need to defend their access to the little space they use and kill all dangerous sharks in the area. And they must start now before more people get killed and disabled. Shark attacks have been building up for years now - it is obvious. The cull will come - earlier or later. Every politician or activist who wastes timee with useless woke measures is personally responsible for more dead children and people. The cull should have started years ago. Same with the saltwater crocodiles.
The policy and the answers of the interviewees are so moronic you'd think it was America. Australians seem to be becoming even dumber.