Body parts found in shark

Australian police were today trying to discover the identity of human remains found in the stomach of a large tiger shark caught off the country’s east coast.

A human skull, arm and pelvis were found in the belly of the 815lbs, 10ft-long shark, which was caught yesterday in waters about 60 miles north of Sydney.

Fishermen discovered the human remains after cutting it open.

‘‘The reaction was not so much horror but shock,’’ local fishing club president Henry Vanags said. ‘‘It is something that you always have in the back of your mind when you are involved in shark fishing, that things like this can happen and it has happened elsewhere.’’

An autopsy on the remains was scheduled for tomorrow.

Detective Sergeant Murray Lundberg of Lake Macquarie police said the autopsy would identify the sex and race of the dead person but finding the exact identity may take some time.

‘‘We have got to look at DNA, dental records, perhaps facial reconstruction,’’ he said. ‘‘We don’t know how long it has been in the water and we don’t know how long it has been in the shark.’’

Fatal shark attacks are rare in Australia. Last year three swimmers were bitten by sharks, but all

survived. The last recorded fatal attacks in Australia were in 2000, when there were three.

Since 1791 there have been 152 fatal attacks worldwide according to the International Shark Attack File, based at the Florida Museum of Natural History.