A teenager who called new shark protection nets a waste of money has become the latest shark attack victim at Ballina.
17-year-old Cooper Allen was recuperating in hospital after having been mauled by a shark while surfing on Monday morning.
Allen was treated at the scene for a lacerations to one of his upper-thighs before being taken to hospital in Lismore, according to Richmond Police Inspector Nicole Bruce.
According to the ABC, the victim’s father Ned Allen said the teenager was “all good” and would be fine.
A NSW SharkSmart crew chased a 3.5 meter great white away from the area on Monday.
3.5m White shark spotted at Lighthouse Beach by NSWDPI aerial team pushed out to sea after attack on male surfer pic.twitter.com/r1NNYIGwMN
— SharkSmart (@NSWSharkSmart) September 26, 2016
The attack occured while Allen was surfing at Lighthouse Beach. It is the fourth serious incident in the area involving a shark in two years.
A new so-called ‘shark eco-barrier’ trial at the beach, part of a $16 million government response to a spate of shark attacks along the NSW coast in recent years, was halted just last month due to ongoing problems in rough conditions.
A second eco-barrlier trial at Seven Mile Beach was also abandoned this month after it became apparent that the new design wouldn’t work when a section of net became detatched.
The latest victim, Cooper Allen, was a friend Tadashi Nakahara who was killed by a shark in 2015 while surfing in Ballina.
Following the fatal attack on Nakahara and the announcement of the eco-barrier trials, Cooper told News Corp earlier this year that surfers always risked being attacked by a shark and that in his opinion the barriers were a waste of money.
NSW Premier Mike Baird has insisted that the new shark net technology could still work though.
“We have committed on a range of strategies in relation to sharks,” he said following the failure of the trials.
“Obviously when you’re trialling new technology, there is a risk on all of it that some will be very successful and some won’t.”
TOP IMAGE: Cooper Allen, via Facebook