Youth Pastor Killed in Shark Attack

An Australian youth pastor was killed Saturday in the country's first fatal shark attack of the year. Luke Walford, 40, had been spearfishing with his family near Humpy Island, at the edge of the Great Barrier Reef, the BBC reports. He died a year to the day after a shark killed a 15-year-old surfer off South Australia. A Queensland Ambulance spokesperson tells 9News that Walford was bitten on the neck and died from his injuries around 90 minutes later. Walford worked as a school chaplain for the Cathedral of Praise Church and Heights College in Rockhampton, Queensland.

At least four other shark attacks, none of them fatal, have been reported in Australia this year. University of the Sunshine Coast shark ecologist Johan Gustafson tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the area where Walford was attacked is known as a "major shark highway." He says the "absolute abundance of life with access to deep water" attracts anglers as well as sharks. Gustafson says the chances of a shark attack are really, really low" and Walford's death shouldn't make people afraid to go in the water. "You're going to die by coconut more often than you are going to die by a shark attack," he says. (More shark attack stories.)