{"id":733222,"date":"2026-06-13T03:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T03:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733222\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T03:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T03:54:14","slug":"coogee-shark-attack-the-grim-summer-a-hundred-years-ago-that-gave-coogee-beach-a-sinister-reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/733222\/","title":{"rendered":"Coogee shark attack: The grim summer a hundred years ago that gave Coogee Beach a sinister reputation"},"content":{"rendered":"

A woman is fighting for her life after being mauled by a shark<\/a> at Sydney\u2019s Coogee Beach<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the most popular beaches in Australia, there has not been a fatal shark attack at Coogee in more than 100 years. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The shark net installed at Coogee Beach in Sydney in 1922 after two fatal attacks.\u00a0NSW State Library<\/p>\n

But in 1922, the beach gained a macabre reputation.<\/p>\n

Over that summer, two young men were killed in quick succession by sharks at the beach.<\/p>\n

The first was a 19-year-old named Milton Coughlan, who died within an hour of being pulled to shore.<\/p>\n

Then a month later, 21-year-old Mervyn Gannon was mauled by a shark at the beach.<\/p>\n

He died of his injuries in the following days.<\/p>\n

As a result, the NSW government introduced a bounty of \u00a350 for every shark caught in Coogee Bay, a substantial sum at the time.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A woman has been attacked by a shark at Coogee beach in Sydney.\u00a09News<\/p>\n

A shark net would be installed at Coogee<\/a> by the time summer came around again.<\/p>\n

Despite the grim reputation Coogee developed in 1922, it remained one of Sydney\u2019s most popular swimming beaches.<\/p>\n

Three years later another young swimmer would be bitten in waist-deep water at Coogee. He lost his leg but survived the attack.<\/p>\n

For most of the 1920s, shark attacks remained rare in Sydney, save for four in 1929 alone – two at Bondi, one at Maroubra and one in the harbour.<\/p>\n

But in the past 12 months there have been six fatal shark attacks in Australia<\/a>, including two in Sydney.<\/p>\n

In January, 12-year-old Nico Antic<\/a> died after he was attacked by a suspected bull shark in Vaucluse.<\/p>\n

And 57-year-old surfer Mercury Psillakis<\/a> was killed at Long Reef Beach in Dee Why in September.<\/p>\n

An attack off Little Bay in 2022<\/a> was the first shark fatality in 59 years in Sydney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman is fighting for her life after being mauled by a shark at Sydney\u2019s Coogee Beach. One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":733223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-733222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/733223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}