The 29-year-old local builder was airlifted from Kingscote to Adelaide with non life-threatening injuries, following the attack which happened at the south end of D'Estrees Bay on the south coast of Kangaroo Island. The popular spot is known locally as The Sewer.

Emergency services were called to D'Estrees Bay after reports a surfer had been bitten by a great white.

SA Ambulance received the call at 1.25pm on Sunday, December 6.

SA Police said the man managed to paddle back to shore and sought help from a member of the public, who drove him toward Kingscote.

Paramedics met the car en route and took the man the rest of the way to the Kangaroo Island hospital at Kingscote.

He was then airlifted by the MedStar helicopter to Adelaide for treatment.

Large sharks are regularly sighted and sometimes encountered around Kangaroo Island.

A big shark, likely a great white, swimming between the two Kingscote jetties on November 15 was photographed by Debbie Farnden.

The Sewer on the south coast meanwhile is accessed through the Cape Gantheaume Conservation Park and Wilderness Protection Area.

It is a popular spot, albeit jealously-guarded spot, with local surfers with the rocky exposed headland on the northern end of sweeping D'Estrees Bay being exposed to southerly swell.

It gained its name by legendary local surfers in the 1960s calling it The Sewer, because it spat you like a piece of ****.

The surfing spot is about to undergo an upgrade with the Department for Environment and Water and National Parks and Wildlife SA looking to rebuild after the fires.

The consultation process was not without some give-and-take as the surfers successfully requested a new toilet block be moved further back out of their line of sight when waiting for the next swell.

The last shark attack to occur on Kangaroo Island was on September 25, 2005 when then 26-year-old Josh Berris, suffered lacerations to both legs after being attacked at Cape du Couedic on the island's south-western tip.

Mr Berris put a hand in the shark's mouth to push it away during the attack, which happened while he was surfing with four friends, according to reports at the time.