SYDNEY, March 12 — A surfer missing in Western Australia was “taken by a shark”, police said, after search teams pulled a board scarred with “bite marks” from the water.

The man was mauled by a shark while surfing at a remote beach in Western Australia on Monday, police said, in the country’s fourth reported fatal attack in recent months.

As a fruitless search wrapped up on Tuesday evening, Western Australia Police Force senior sergeant Christopher Taylor said the “surfer was taken by a shark”.

“Unfortunately that search has not recovered the surfer’s body. I can confirm that our search is a recovery, not a rescue.”

The unnamed man, in his 30s, had been surfing off remote Wharton Beach, a white sand cape about 90 kilometres (55 miles) east of regional hub Esperance.

“A surfboard with evidence of bite marks was recovered from the water,” Western Australia Police said in a separate statement on Tuesday.

In February, a shark killed a 17-year-old girl swimming off an eastern Australian island, while a 28-year-old surfer was fatally bitten in South Australia the month prior.

Days earlier, on December 28, a shark fatally bit a 40-year-old pastor in the neck as he was spearfishing off Queensland. — AFP