The body of a surfer remains missing after a deadly shark attack at a popular beach in Australia.
Steven Payne, 37, was surfing off Wharton Beach — a remote area of Western Australia, nearly 800 kilometres southeast of Perth — when the shark mauled him while his girlfriend and others looked on helplessly, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
He was in chest-deep water about 50 metres from short when the attack took place on Monday afternoon.
Authorities received reports of the horrific attack and set out to rescue Payne but only found his surfboard floating in the water with evidence of bite marks.
Drone footage that captured Payne’s final moments was taken by a member of the public and shared with police, resulting in the rescue shifting to a recovery mission.
Senior Sgt. Chris Taylor, of the Western Australia Police Force, confirmed in a statement on Tuesday that WA Police Force, Marine Rescue WA and SES personnel were unable to find Payne’s body, and that the “search is a recovery not a rescue.”
He added that Payne was with at least two other surfers when the shark attacked, but there was “nothing they could do.”
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The drone footage and witness accounts made it “so obvious what had happened,” the sergeant noted.
“It shows a lot of blood, the shark and some other things in there I don’t particularly want to go into and I don’t think anybody else needs to see other than maybe the coroner and some other experts who will determine the type of shark and size,” Taylor said, adding that it was “tragic” Payne’s girlfriend witnessed the shocking attack.
“Her life was turned upside down… You can imagine how she is, it’s just horrible,” he continued.
Payne, a volunteer firefighter who worked as a sales and marketing director in Melbourne, was with his girlfriend and their dog mere weeks into a six-month dream vacation around Australia.
Payne’s death marks the fourth fatal shark attacks in the area since 2017.