On February 5th, 2023, a 16-year-old girl was attacked and killed by a shark while swimming in the Swan River in Perth, Australia.
The incident happened as she was riding jet skis with friends on the river and it is believed that she may have jumped in the water to swim with dolphins seen nearby.
The teenager was pronounced dead after being pulled from the river, despite the efforts of police and paramedics to save her life.
Stella Berry, a Year 11 student at Shenton College in Perth, was pulled from the river with significant injuries to her leg. The attack took place near the Fremantle traffic bridge, south of Perth, just after 3.30pm on Saturday
According to fisheries experts, it is unusual to find sharks in the Swan River. It is thought this is the first fatal shark attack in the river since a 13-year-old boy was killed in January 1923.
It is suspected the animal involved was a bull shark. Just four days later, authorities confirmed that a bull shark up to 3 metres long was seen in the river. An image posted to Facebook apparently showed a large shark that had been caught on the banks of the Swan River, less than one kilometre from where Stella was attacked.
Australia typically records around 20 shark attacks each year, with the majority occurring in New South Wales and Western Australia. In 2021, there were two fatal shark attacks and in 2020, there were seven.
Historically speaking, dying from a shark bite is not common, with a mortality rate of 0.9, less than one person per year, in over a century of records in Australia.
In 2017, Stella Berry was featured in a local paper for her design of a shark-free ocean pool for Perth’s Cottesloe Beach. The school engineering project was submitted to the council after great white sharks had been spotted in the area, prompting an open call for ideas.
