The predator bit the boy, believed to be about 13 years old, in the late afternoon off Shark Beach.

The predator bit the boy, believed to be about 13 years old, off Shark Beach in Sydney, Australia.

SYDNEY – A shark mauled a teenage boy in Sydney Harbour on Jan 18, police said, leaving him in a critical condition with serious leg injuries.

The predator bit the boy, believed to be about 13, in the late afternoon off Shark Beach, New South Wales state police said.

“The injuries are consistent with what is believed to have been a large shark,” police said in a statement.

Officers pulled the teenager from the water within minutes of being alerted to the incident, off the harbour beach in the eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, police said.

The boy received first aid for “serious” leg injuries aboard a police boat, with officers applying two medical tourniquets.

Paramedics took him to Sydney Children’s Hospital, where he was said to be in critical condition.

“Swimmers are advised to avoid entering nearby waters at this time,” police said.

Shark Beach, in Sydney’s eastern suburb of Vaucluse, was closed and police evacuated nearby beaches in the harbour, the state government said.

Wildlife experts were working to identify the shark species involved, it said in a statement.

“This is a tragic shark attack on a young boy having a swim on a Sunday afternoon near a harbour beach in Sydney’s east,” New South Wales Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said.

“Our thoughts are with the young boy and his family. I understand there were also other young people with him at the time of the attack; our thoughts are also with them.”

There have been more than 1,280 shark incidents around Australia since 1791, of which more than 250 resulted in death, according to a database of the predators’ encounters with humans.

Increasingly crowded waters and rising ocean temperatures, which appear to be altering sharks’ migratory patterns, may be contributing to a rise in attacks, even as overfishing depletes some species, scientists say.

A

great white shark mauled surfer Mercury Psillakis

 to death at a popular northern Sydney ocean beach in September.

The man, who left a wife and young daughter, suffered extensive injuries, and his surfboard was broken in two.

Two months later, a

bull shark killed a woman swimming

 off a remote beach north of Sydney. AFP