Authorities in South Australia today vowed to hunt down and kill the shark responsible for the death of an 18-year-old youth who was taken by a great white pointer off an Adelaide beach.

Police said the 15ft predator, which had believed to have been lurking near the shore for the past three weeks, was sighted twice today, but managed to escape.

Kevin Foley, the acting Premier of South Australia said: "Any shark posing a threat or risk to human life ... should be destroyed, that is unequivocal.

"We will not apologise for taking the policy position that the safety of human life will come before the preservation of a particular shark," he added.

Although great whites are a protected species in Australia, Mr Foley defended the decision to destroy the culprit because it was a threat to swimmers. "The Government’s position is quite clear," he emphasised.

"Any large shark in close proximity to the beaches of our state, particularly the city of Adelaide, should be destroyed. Officers are authorised to take whatever necessary action to ensure the destruction of a shark posing a risk."

Once sighted, the shark could be harpooned by fishermen or shot from a helicopter, although the difficulty of destroying a fast-moving object underwater was not to be under-estimated, marine experts said.

Police and rescue services now believe that only one shark was involved in the attack on Nick Peterson, who was torn in half when he fell from his surfboard while being towed by a group of friends in their boat off Adelaide’s West Beach.

His friends reportedly tried to save him by beating the great white with oars in an attempt to make it release the teenager. But after lunging at the youth it went in for the kill and pulled the body beneath the water.

The authorities’ determination to find and kill the great white was in sharp contrast to the youth’s father, who believed his son would not have wanted such action taken.

Philip Peterson, who visited the beach where his child was taken, said that the family did not support the killing of marine life.

"We acknowledge that the sea is in fact the shark’s domain and we don’t, and I certainly don’t, advocate the indiscriminate killing of any shark," he said.

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