A 12-year-old boy is in for the “fight of his life” after being attacked by a large shark in Sydney harbour on Sunday afternoon, with police warning against people entering the water at nearby swimming spots.
In a separate incident on Monday, a shark attacked an 11-year-old boy at Dee Why, in the city’s north. The shark left multiple bite marks on his board but the boy was unharmed.
New South Wales police said the boy attacked on Sunday was jumping off a popular rock ledge near Nielsen park in Sydney’s east at about 4.20pm with friends when the incident, thought to involve a bull shark, took place.
Map showing Nielsen park and Shark beach location
The boy’s friends, all of similar ages, rushed to assist him, with at least one jumping into the water to pull him to safety.
Supt Joe McNulty, the commander of NSW police’s marine area command, praised the friends for their quick response.
“The actions of his mates who’ve gone into the water and pulled him out have been nothing but brave,” McNulty said.
“All I can say is the actions between police … the team who were doing CPR at the time, it was extraordinary. It was a textbook recovery to give this boy a fighting chance for survival. He’s in for the fight of his life now, and the actions of emergency services yesterday gave him that chance.”
A nearby police speedboat responded within minutes and an officer applied a double tourniquet to both of the boy’s legs to stop the bleeding. Officers were administering CPR as the boy was taken by boat to nearby Rose Bay, where ambulance crews were waiting to take him to hospital.
As of Monday afternoon, he remained in critical condition with injuries to both legs.
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Insp Giles Buchanan of NSW ambulance said the tourniquet applied by officers shortly after the attack was “definitely a life-saving intervention”. He described the initial response to the attack as a “resuscitation situation”, noting the boy was unconscious when emergency officials first arrived.
The boy had to be intubated to assist with breathing.
A popular rock jumping point near Shark beach in Vaucluse. Photograph: Sitthixay Ditthavong/AAP
“I think it was touch-and-go the entire time,” Buchanan added. “It still is.”
The department of primary industries said it could not confirm the species based on photos of the injury, however it believed a bull shark was likely responsible “based on the nature of the injuries and the environmental conditions at the site”.
McNulty noted Sydney harbour was brackish, meaning it contained a mixture of salt and freshwater, and after a weekend of heavy rain, which can worsen visibility, officials believed the water quality, as well as the splashing from people jumping into the water off the rocks, “may have made that perfect storm environment for the shark attack”, he said.
“At the moment we’ve experienced a lot of freshwater in the harbour, it’s brackish water so you can’t see the bottom,” he said. “So I would recommend not swimming there right now. It’s not a good time to swim.”
NSW SharkSmart confirmed that beaches in the vicinity of Nielsen park, including Shark Bay beach and Camp Cove beach, remained closed after the incident.
It also confirmed a shark was sighted in the area later Monday afternoon, about 1.40pm, prompting evacuations from the water. The beach had been closed.
Sharks ‘follow those fish’
Daryl McPhee, an associate professor and shark expert at Bond University, said bull sharks were well adapted to feeding in murky water.
“They can find things to eat very well in those conditions,” he said.
“The rainfall moves fish around areas such as Sydney harbour, and the sharks will follow those fish.”
He said while shark bites were rare in the harbour – there had been just four in the last 50 years including a woman who was seriously injured after a bull shark bit her leg in Elizabeth Bay – experts advise swimmers to avoid murky water as well as areas with large numbers of small fish.
Bull sharks were opportunistic hunters, and cases of human bites can be the animals seeing if they can eat what is in front of them, McPhee said.
SLS advise beaches in the vicinity of Nielsens Park-Shark Bay Beach, SYDNEY HARBOUR, remain closed after yesterday’s shark incident. Please be #SharkSmart.
— SharkSmart (@NSWSharkSmart) January 18, 2026
