By Aaron Kelly and Nicholas McElroy, ABC
Police say 40-year-old Luke Walford was attacked shortly after 4.30pm. Photo: Supplied / ABC
A youth pastor has died after a shark attack while spearfishing with his family on an island off the Central Queensland coast.
A rescue helicopter was called to the Humpy Island camping area in the Keppel Bay Islands National Park yesterday afternoon.
Police say 40-year-old Luke Walford was attacked shortly after 4.30pm.
Paramedics attempted to save Walford but he died at the scene just before 6pm.
Keppel Bay Islands is 18 kilometres off the mainland, near Yeppoon.
Walford worked as a school chaplain for the Cathedral of Praise Church and Heights College in Rockhampton.
Family friend Doug Webber watched the rescue helicopter fly over his house and out to the island.
"I always say a little tribute for whoever it may be, but to find out it was Luke was a very sad day," he said.
"He had so much to offer this world in helping people."
Webber said Walford was a "beautiful soul".
"Luke always had a heart for God, and you could always see that he would be in ministry somewhere.
"We know because of our faith he's in a better place but it doesn't help for those who are left here and mourning a great person."
Cathedral of Praise Church pastor Claude Fingleton says Luke Walford loved people and God. Photo: ABC / Aaron Kelly
Cathedral of Praise Church pastor Claude Fingleton said Walford was "greatly loved".
Walford had worked at the church for nearly a decade.
"This was a young man who loved people, who loved God," Fingleton said.
"Him and his wife were just a wonderful couple. They loved to serve people."
Member for Rockhampton Donna Kirkland said the community had lost an "inspirational leader".
"A family friend, not only to my own family, but countless others," Kirkland said.
"He was an inspirational leader as a children's and youth pastor. We are all very much still in shock.
"My prayers and heartfelt condolences are with his beautiful family and indeed the many who will be devastated, as I am, at this news."
Keppel MP Nigel Hutton said the community was sending thoughts and prayers to Walford's family.
It is the second shark attack in Central Queensland this month.
Islands home to 'absolute abundance of life'
Earlier this month, a man was taken to hospital after a shark attack off Curtis Island near Gladstone.
There have been at least four other shark attacks in Australian waters so far this year including one off Mackay on 30 October and at Bargara Beach on 12 March, according to the Australian Shark Incident Database.
The last fatal attack in Central Queensland was in 2020.
Saturday's attack was in a region on the Southern Great Barrier Reef well-known for marine life, University of the Sunshine Coast shark ecologist Johan Gustafson said.
The eastern edge of the reef is known as a "major shark highway".
"It's an absolute abundance of life with access to deep water," Dr Gustafson said.
This abundance attracts recreational anglers, who are often aware of the risks of fishing alongside the apex predators and take precautions, Dr Gustafson said.
Sharks are attracted to the blood and stress signals sent out by speared, hooked or injured fish.
"The major cause of their activity is actually fish blood. As they sense that fish blood … it just really gets them going," he said.
"Then they go into hunting behaviours, also territorial behaviour, where you're going to see sharks moving rapidly in straight lines, they'll be doing really sharp bends and turns looking for that source [of prey]."
Falling coconuts more deadly than sharks
Dr Gustafson said shark attacks are extremely rare, and this fatality should not put beachgoers off going into the water.
The risk of a shark attack is "really, really low", he said.
"You're going to die by coconut more often than you are going to die by a shark attack."
People can reduce the risk by swimming when shark are less active, he said.
Sharks are generally more active around dawn and dusk, after heavy rains or upwellings of cold water and as schools of fish pass by the coast.
"If you're in an isolated area where you see a lot of sea birds, or you see a lot of fish activity busting up on the on the surface, you are probably not wise to be jumping in the water to go for a bit of a swim," he said.
- ABC
