Surfers brave the water at Baylys Beach in the morning after the attack of a great white shark

A large white shark attack at Baylys Beach does not allow residents to stay away from the water. Thirsty surfers brave the waves the next morning, after a man escaped him with bites and a quilted board.

The victim, a 20-year-old man from Whangarei, was slightly injured during the attack in Northland, which occurred around 6 pm yesterday.

His surfboard was not so lucky: there were bite marks, a crack and a jagged tooth buried in the body of the board.

He was transported to Whangarei Hospital. A spokesman for the hospital this morning said that the man had been transferred to a service and that he was in a stable state.

The attack took place at Baylys Beach, near Dargaville – this is the first attack in the Northland region.

Baylys Beach resident Ken Cashin has been watching the waters since the incident took place on the beach under his property last night.

The beach had been quite deserted earlier this morning, he said, but he had seen two surfers jump on their boards around 9 am and head for the waves.

"The surf of today looks absolutely wonderful," he said.

"I think surfers are going to have a little fun this morning."

Cashin stated that it had been difficult to say how much the man's injuries were related to his location on the hill, although he witnessed the man's displacement. as a result of the attack.

"He walked … you can see in one of the photos that he was talking to people near the ambulance."

Cashin managed a Facebook site on which he uploaded photos from the Kauri and Kaipara coast. So he took some pictures of the incident to keep other locals up to date.

Another resident had recently told him that there were "a lot of sharks around."

This was the first shark attack in the region for about two decades.

"We have a granddaughter who is learning to surf – I think her mother is a little worried," said Cashin.

Deputy Chief of the Dargaville Volunteer Fire Department, Michael Ross, said the victim had been bitten at several places by the shark, but that she "walked and talked".

"He has it in his hand, his elbow, a little on his mouth." He was definitely in pain and there was some blood.

"I have lived here 45 years and I do not remember the last person who was bitten by a shark here," Ross said.

Ross and the police stated that they did not know what type of shark had attacked the man.

But conservation science shark scientist and expert Clinton Duffy said it was a big "indisputable" attack on white sharks, probably "of a size". reasonable".

He pointed to the spacing between the teeth marks on the surfer's board and said that the tooth left stuck in the board came from the lower jaw of a tall white one.

"The tooth [in the surfboard] is the lower jaw of a large white and the bite pattern also shows … it is undeniable. "

Duffy said that he would need a measure of the tooth to know for sure the size of the shark and whether it was a juvenile or a kid. adult.

"It's hard to say, but it sounds like a reasonable size fish."

Even a large juvenile white was large – females matured between 4.5 and 5.2 m and about 1800 kg and males between 3.6 and 800 kg.

Duffy said that large whites were common around the Northland coast all year, but that most near – shore sightings took place in the summer.

Most people survived large white attacks because these attacks were characterized by a bite and a release, he said.

There have been two or three other major white attacks off the coast of Northland in recent years, among 113 unprovoked attacks by sharks of all types in New Zealand waters since 1840.

The shark "would not even know" that he had lost a tooth and that a replacement would soon grow in his place, Duffy said.

He was tracking down some excellent whites in Kaipara Harbor and they tended to move along the coast quite quickly, he said.

"This shark probably evolved [from Baylys Beach]. "

The beach was closed by police last night.

A police spokeswoman said that the man was overrated at the time of the attack and that he was bitten by the arm and by hand.

"He went to shore as a result of the attack.A man helped him after the attack by taking him on the beach, in his environment."

The man was picked up by the rescue helicopter in front of a store located on Seaview Road, called Sharkeys Takeaways, she said.

In records dating back to the 1850s, there were fewer than 50 unprovoked recorded attacks in New Zealand.

The last deadly shark attack took place in Muriwai in 2013.