Shark swims close to shore on Papamoa Beach

Holidaymakers enjoying a dip at a popular Bay of Plenty beach beat a hasty retreat after a shark came close to shore yesterday.

Bathers cooling off at Papamoa Beach cleared the water after a 2.5m bronze whaler entered the shallows.

People warned each other of the danger and onlookers took snaps and video before the shark eventually swam away.

Shark sightings have become commonplace around the New Zealand coastline this summer, including close encounters with great white sharks in Auckland.

Two shark attacks left a surfer and fisherman with serious injuries.

In February, a surfer was mauled by a shark off the Southland coast.

The man was bitten three times, reportedly by a great white, while he was surfing at Porpoise Bay, near Curio Bay.

In December, a junior Southland doctor made headlines around the world when he stitched up his own wound after being attacked by a shark while fishing near Cosy Nook, off the south coast.

James Grant fought off the shark, believed to be a sevengill, before he treated his wound and his mates took him to the hospital.

In January, a shoal of eight sharks forced the beach at Coromandel holiday hot-spot Pauanui to close.

Over the New Year there were reported sightings of a 4.5m great white in the Waitemata Harbour.

A family fishing from a 6m vessel in the harbour near Te Atatu, West Auckland, hooked the predator on a fishing line.

The shark was reported to have jumped high out of the water, snapping the line.

That sighting led the Department of Conservation to issue a warning to those fishing, kayaking and kite-surfing in the area.

A week before Christmas there was another sighting of a great white breaching the water at Okakari Pt near Leigh.

In the last fatal shark attack in New Zealand waters, Auckland film-maker Adam Strange, 47, was killed at Muriwai on Auckland's west coast in February 2013.