From DailyMail:"An award-winning film and TV director was today mauled to death by a Great White shark as he swam off a popular New Zealand tourist beach. Adam Strange, 46, was attacked and pulled under water about 200 metres from Auckland’s Muriwai Beach at around 1:30pm in front of hundreds of beach tourists. Up to three more sharks were said to have been drawn to the attack as police officers fired at least 20 shots from a lifeboat and helicopter in a desperate bid to rescue him. The Great White eventually let go and moved away. It took rescuers – including three lifeguards who knew the victim - 30 minutes to retrieve the father-of-one’s body. The remains of a shark were later dragged up on the beach."
From Mirror.co.uk:"We saw the shark fin and the next minute, boom, the attack came. There was blood everywhere on the water."
"The man was still alive. He put his head up. We called to him to swim over to the rock where we were."
"He raised his hand up but we saw another attack pull him in the water."
From Stuff.co.nz:Around 200 people were on the beach and people quickly ran.
"Everybody was evacuated from the water. Word of mouth, ’shark’, and everybody left the water."
TV3 reported from the beach that as many as three sharks may have been involved.
A witness told them he spotted the lone swimmer while he was out fishing at the beach, shortly before 2pm.
The distressed man signaled for help when he was attacked by a shark, before he was pulled underwater.
At this point, the witness said three or four other sharks appeared in the area.
Other surfers reported a large shark in the water at the rivermouth at north Piha today.
"We thought it was pretty cheeky because it was right in the surf line, heading north," one said.
From the Florida Museum of Natural History:http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/scuba/Decade/Decade.htmhttp://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/statistics/GAttack/World.htmThere have been 215 unprovoked shark attacks on divers between 1820 - 2011, of which 40 (19%) were fatal. Compared to 2569 unprovoked shark attacks over all between 1580 - 2012, of which 484 (19%) were fatal.
The majority of shark attacks on divers are not fatal. This does not mean that divers should be less careful in the water, but it does support the idea that sharks are not hunting humans for food. Fatal attacks are usually the result of significant blood loss and stress. One theory suggests that sharks will bite their prey to make sure it is edible before eating it. Once this ’prey’ item is identified as an unnatural source of food, the shark will swim away to find more suitable food elsewhere.