🔗 Share this article

The iconic great white in the Mediterranean basin are facing a serious threat of extinction, with illegal fishing being a key factor to their worrying decrease.

This finding is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who collaborated with an international conservation charity. They indicate that some of the most threatened species – including great white sharks – are being sold in fish markets across North Africa.

Great whites are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which renders it unlawful to fish for them or to sell them.

However, by monitoring fishing ports along the coastline of North Africa, scientists uncovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been caught and killed there in the single year of 2025.

Social media clips showing sharks under protection being unloaded in North African ports has been authenticated.

A particular clip showed a sizeable great white shark being hauled ashore from a vessel in Algeria. Another, taken in a Tunisian location, shows heads and fins of what is believed to be a mako shark, which is also a protected and endangered species.

Remaining Habitat

The principal scientist, stated that many shark species – particularly great whites – had declined dramatically in the Mediterranean in the last few decades.

"No other sea is fished like the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The impact of industrial fishing has been growing... and it's likely that they will go extinct in the near future."

The population of great whites in the Mediterranean is now classified as Critically Endangered by the global conservation union.

In their new mission to find and study the sharks, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area considered a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several endangered shark species.

One key aim of their project was to fit a satellite tracking tag onto a great white – something that has not yet been accomplished in the Mediterranean Sea.

To do this, the researchers used more than three tonnes of bait – including frozen fish parts and hundreds of liters of tuna oil to create a "oil slick" that many sharks can detect from a great distance.

Even after a fortnight of effort – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to search for shark DNA and using subsea cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any sharks to tag.

They captured only a short sighting of one blue shark on their cameras.

"It's discouraging," the lead researcher said. "It just shows how degraded this marine environment is."

During their search for remaining sharks, they also were informed that a small great white had been captured and killed in a regional fishery – just a short distance from where they were working.

It is unknown whether that specimen was ensnared unintentionally in nets or lines, or if it was targeted.

The team, however, calculates that more than 40 great white sharks have been caught around that coast. "This is a lot for a critically endangered population," the researcher emphasized.

Illegal Shark Trade

The team, along with local partners, are observing various harbors in the region. Evidence shows that protected sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including several North African nations.

The regulations safeguarding sharks are multifaceted. Currently, two dozen endangered species have treaty-based safeguards – like makos and hammerheads.

An international agreement states that those species cannot be "retained on board, transhipped, landed, transferred, stored, sold or displayed or offered for sale".

The agreement states "they must be released alive [where] possible". Those rules do not tackle accidental bycatch and implementation differs from nation to nation.

A marine advocate noted that his own investigation found several great whites on sale. But, he said, there was a seeming silver lining in the fact that white sharks were being found in markets.

"It shows that there is life remaining," he said. "And if we can protect this, there is a chance of recovery."

The Path Forward

In economically challenged regions in North Africa, fishing communities who catch sharks might face the decision of whether to provide for their families, or throw back an endangered shark to the ocean.

"Why would they discard their catch into the sea when they need food for their children?" asked a regional marine biologist. "If you support them and train them in more responsible fishing, they will not catch white sharks."

An advocate added that if countries around the Mediterranean collaborated, "there is hope."

"But," he added, "we've got to act very quickly."