Shark kills pastor fishing in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

This aerial photo taken on April 5, 2024, shows tourists snorkeling above bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef, located 270 kilometres (167 miles) north of the city of Cairns. | Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP

SYDNEY, Australia — A shark has attacked and killed a 40-year-old pastor who was fishing with his family in the waters of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, officials said.

The predator bit him on the neck on Saturday afternoon off Humpy Island on the country’s east coast, emergency services said.

“The man was fishing with family members when he was bitten by a shark,” Queensland state police said in a statement.

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He sustained “life-threatening injuries” and died about an hour-and-a-half later, police said, adding that a report would be prepared for the coroner.

A Queensland ambulance spokeswoman told AFP on Sunday that he died at the scene after sustaining a “significant life-threatening wound to his neck”.

Humpy Island, which lies in the Great Barrier Reef’s Keppel Bay Islands National Park, has a popular camping ground that gives easy access to reefs for diving and snorkeling.

Community leaders spoke of their distress at the loss of Luke Walford, a youth pastor at the Cathedral of Praise church in the central Queensland town of Rockhampton.

Walford, who had posted photos on social media of himself in a wetsuit during a previous fishing trip, was believed to have been spearfishing at the time of the attack.

“We are all very much still in shock,” said Donna Kirkland, who represents Rockhampton in the Queensland state parliament.

“A family friend, not only to my own family but countless others. He was an inspirational leader as a children’s and youth pastor,” she said in a statement.

“My prayers and heartfelt condolences are with his beautiful family and indeed the many who will be devastated, as I am, at this news.”

The pastor of Cathedral of Praise, Claude Fingleton, said Walford was “greatly loved”.

“This was a young man who loved people, who loved God,” he told national broadcaster ABC.

The country’s last fatal shark attack was in December 2023, when what was believed to be a great white killed a 15-year-old boy at a remote surfing spot in South Australia.

There have been more than 1,200 shark incidents in Australia since 1791, of which over 250 resulted in death, according to a national database.

Most serious bites are from white sharks, bull sharks, and tiger sharks.