A navy diver fought off a shark as it attacked him during an anti-terrorism training exercise in Sydney Harbour, the navy says.
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The 31-year-old man is undergoing emergency surgery and is in a serious condition following the attack at Woolloomooloo Bay, in Sydney's inner east, just before 7am today.
Royal Australian Navy Rear Admiral Nigel Coates said the attack occurred in the area between Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Garden Island Naval Base.
Rear Admiral Coates, who is Fleet Commander at Garden Island, confirmed the man is a navy diver who was participating in a diving exercise in Sydney Harbour run by the navy over the past two weeks.
"He was with a police diver, I understand, at the time because the exercise included police divers. The attack occurred on the surface," he told Fairfax Radio Network.
"He fought off the shark. He hit the shark a few times, as I understand it, and then swam a couple of metres to the safety boat which was obviously nearby.
"The safety boat people got him on board, applied first aid, rang triple-0, got him to the ambulance and up to the hospital.
"It sounds to me, initially at least, like he got to hospital very quickly, and he's in the good hands of St Vincent's."
Navy divers were a "pretty tough breed" who trained regularly in Sydney Harbour and were used to the conditions, he said.
The shark was most likely a bull shark, and sharks were now increasingly common in the harbour, said John Dengate from the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
"February and March tends to be the time of year we get more sharks and surface fish in the harbour," he said.
"I guess it's the downside of the environmental controls ... 20 or 30 years ago the harbour was a very difficult place to be for a fish, these days it's actually quite beautiful."
Bans on waste discharges into the harbour by factories, a crackdown on toxic emissions and use of chemicals, and improvements to the stormwater system had improved the harbour, resulting in more fish and - to feed on them - more sharks, Mr Dengate said.
However, shark attacks in the harbour were not that common, with the last serious attack believed to be more than a decade ago, he said.
Mr Dengate was not sure what the shark's next movements would be.
"It's hard to say, sharks are not tremendously predictable creatures," he said.
"But sharks are comfortable in estuaries and in that sense people should exercise caution ... and if they're going swimming look to swim inside the many swimming nets in the harbour."
John West, a shark expert from Taronga Zoo, added: "This time of year, there's a number of species of sharks which are in the harbour: wobbegong, Port Jackson, as well as more dangerous types such as the bull shark and the dusky shark.
"Certainly, sharks occur in the harbour all year round.
"The bull sharks are the most dangerous."
He said bull sharks could grow to up to three-and-a-half metres and dusky sharks up to two metres.
A NSW ambulance spokesman said the 31-year-old suffered severe injuries to his right hand and leg.
The man's leg injuries extended from his buttocks down to his knee, he said.
Paramedics had heard reports the man saw "something big and grey beneath him just before the attack", the spokesman said.
The diver was rushed to nearby St Vincent's Hospital where a spokesman said the victim was undergoing surgery.
"He's up in surgery at the moment," the spokesman said.
"The fact that he has been rushed into surgery indicates that it is quite serious."
The diver was taking part in the Kondari Trial, a test of new technologies to protect ports and ships from terrorist attack, which began on Monday.
A spokesman for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation said it was likely the trial would be cancelled today.
The last shark attack in Sydney Harbour was at Athol Bay, near Taronga Zoo, in 2000, and the last fatal shark attack in the harbour occurred in 1963, Mr West said.
Martha Hathaway was killed by a bull shark at Middle Harbour in 1963.
A report on the likelihood of shark attacks in Sydney Harbour during the 2000 Olympic Games said the risk was infinitesimally small.
However, the report, by Mr West and Dr John Paxton, research fellow at the Australian Museum, also said: "We recognise that in biology exceptions can occur and that it is never safe to say never."
