🔗 Share this article

These formidable predators in the Mediterranean basin are on the verge of vanishing, with illegal fishing being a major contributor to their alarming decline.

This finding is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who partnered with an international conservation charity. They indicate that some of the most threatened species – like the great white shark – are found on sale in ports across Northern African nations.

Great whites are one of more than 20 Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which prohibits to target them or to offer them for sale.

However, by surveying docks along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, the research team found that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been caught and killed there in 2025 alone.

Footage from social media showing protected sharks being landed at North African ports has been independently verified.

A particular clip showed a large great white being pulled from a boat from a trawler in Algeria. Additional footage, taken in a Tunisian location, shows parts of what appears to be a short-finned mako shark, which is also a species at risk.

Final Refuge

The project head, stated that many populations of sharks – particularly great whites – had declined dramatically in the Mediterranean in recent decades.

"No other sea is subjected to such fishing pressure as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been growing... and it's likely that they will vanish in the coming years."

The Mediterranean white shark population is now listed as Critically Endangered by the global conservation union.

In their new mission to locate and research the animals, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area known as a "last stronghold" in the Mediterranean for several sharks at risk.

An important goal of their mission was to attach a satellite tag onto a shark – something that has remained unachieved in the Mediterranean Sea.

To attempt this, the researchers used a large amount of chum – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and hundreds of liters of fish oil to create a "oil slick" that many sharks can smell from hundreds of metres away.

Despite working for two weeks – baiting the ocean, collecting water samples to look for genetic material and using subsea cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any sharks to tag.

They captured only a brief glimpse of one shark on their cameras.

"It's disappointing," the lead researcher said. "It just shows how degraded this ecosystem is."

During their search for living sharks, they also were informed that a juvenile great white had been captured and killed in a fishery off North Africa – just a short distance from where they were working.

It is not clear whether that shark was accidentally caught in fishing gear, or if it was targeted.

The team, however, estimates that in excess of 40 great white sharks have been caught around that coast. "This is a lot for a critically endangered population," the researcher emphasized.

Protected Sharks Traded

The scientists, along with regional contacts, are observing various harbors in the region. Findings shows that protected sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including the region.

The protective legislation are multifaceted. Currently, numerous species have global protection – including mako, angel, threshers 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 specifies "they must be released alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address accidental bycatch and implementation differs from one place to another.

A conservationist noted that his own inquiry found a number of sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a paradoxical element of hope in the fact that white sharks were turning up for sale.

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

The Path Forward

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to earn a livelihood, or throw back an endangered shark to the ocean.

"Why would they release sharks into the sea when they require sustenance for their families?" asked a regional marine biologist. "If you provide alternatives and education in more sustainable fishing, they will not catch protected species."

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

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