“[Sunday] being Father’s Day, it’s particularly tragic,” Police Superintendent John Duncan said.<\/p>\n
The attack is believed to have happened about 100m offshore, with surfers pulling Psillakis to shore.<\/p>\n
Pieces of a surfboard were taken for examination as government shark biologists work to identify the species of shark involved.<\/p>\n
![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/long-reef-beach-sydney-shark-attack-MAU52RLTJVHO5NQEQEVU7IPQC4.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
People on Long Reef Beach after the shark attack. (Source: Westpac Life Saver Rescue)<\/p>\n
NSW Premier Chris Minns said Psillakis was an experienced surfer and part of Dee Why’s surfing community.<\/p>\n
“It’s shocking for his family and for the people of the Northern Beaches,” he told Sky News on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Tributes flowed online, with one surfer saying Psillakis would always welcome him with open arms when he travelled down to Sydney.<\/p>\n
“Sincere condolences to his wife and family, you are forever in the surf riding your last wave,” they said.<\/p>\n
Another man said the Northern Beaches had been keyed for generations by tight groupings of surfing siblings.<\/p>\n
“To lose such a keystone in Mercury in so radical a sudden way leaves anyone with sense of heritage stone cold heartbroken,” he said.<\/p>\n
The NSW government spends more than AU$21 million on its annual shark management programme, with nets installed at 51 beaches between Newcastle and Wollongong from the start of September.<\/p>\n
Three councils, including the Northern Beaches Council, each asked to nominate a beach where nets could be removed.<\/p>\n
The NSW government planned a trial of net-free beaches but Minns said it stalled because agreement could not be reached on locations.<\/p>\n
A decision on proceeding will not be made until after the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development reports back on Saturday’s fatal shark attack, the premier said.<\/p>\n
“This is a terrible event,” Minns said.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite rare in Sydney \u2013 this is the … second fatal shark attack in 60 years.”<\/p>\n
Minns provided no firm timeline for the report, saying he wanted to give investigators time to provide advice about whether the attack was likely to be a frequent occurrence or was an isolated event.<\/p>\n
“We need to understand what happened and how it happened,” he said.<\/p>\n
The state’s shark management plan also includes the use of drones to patrol beaches and drumlines to provide real-time alerts about sharks near the shore.<\/p>\n
Long Reef Beach uses drumlines and does not have a shark net but nearby Dee Why Beach does.<\/p>\n
Before Saturday’s attack, the last shark-related fatality in Sydney occurred in February 2022, when British diving instructor Simon Nellist was killed by a great white off Little Bay in the city’s east.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A father mauled to death in a rare shark attack has been identified as a local business owner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[50,85,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-7272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-animals","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}