Man killed in shark attack while swimming 60 yards off Hawaii beach

A Californian man was killed in a suspected shark attack in waters off the coast of Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday.

The 65-year-old man, who has not been named, was reportedly swimming about 60 yards off the beach on the Kaanapali Shores area in western Maui.

A witness in a neighbouring hotel reportedly raised the alarm and rescuers sent a jet ski and helicopter to find the man.

They reportedly performed CPR, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

His extensive injuries were consistent with a shark attack, KHON2 News said.

The attack is the sixth shark-bite case of the year in Hawaii and the first to result in a fatality since 2015, according to the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Only five fatal shark attacks have been recorded since 1995 in Hawaii.

Shark expert Michael Domier told KHON2 News: “Your chances of getting attacked by a shark and even surviving is less than one in 12 million.”

In 2015 a woman was killed by a tiger shark while swimming off Maui.

The species of shark which killed the man has not yet been confirmed.

Sharks kill about six people a year on average around the world, according to the International Shark Attack File (ISAF).

In 2018 four people died from shark attacks.

Many more people are injured and killed on land while driving to and from the beach than by sharks in the water, the ISAF notes.

“Shark bites globally are on a slow, gradual rise, a direct result of the increasing number of people in the water. But fatality rates worldwide have been on the decline for decades,” the site says.

“The somber truth is that most of the world’s shark populations are in decline, or exist at greatly reduced levels, as a consequence of overfishing and habitat loss,” the website says.

“Fisheries kill about 100 million sharks and rays annually.”