MELBOURNE, Australia — A spearfisher was killed on Saturday in Australia’s third fatal shark attack in four weeks, police said. The 35-year-old man was spearfishing with family off Michaelmas Island near the port city of Albany in Western Australia state when he was attacked before noon, a police statement said. The man was brought by boat to Albany where paramedics were waiting but he could not be revived, police said. Authorities suspect a 4.5-metre (15-foot) white shark was responsible. The spate of three fatalities is extraordinary in a nation that has averaged around three shark deaths a year in recent decades. The last fatality was on May 24 when 39-year-old spearfisher Michael Jensz suffered unsurvivable head injuries in an attack on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia’s northeast coast. Bull sharks had been seen in the vicinity . A week earlier, on May 16, a four-metre (13-foot) white shark fatally mauled 38-year-old spearfisher Steve Mattabonni northwest of Albany near Rottnest Island. Australia’s only other fatal shark attack this year occurred in January, when a 12-year-old boy died in a hospital days after he was mauled by a bull shark in Sydney Harbor. The Associated Press
