These Apex Predators Are on the Brink of Vanishing in the Mediterranean, Researchers Report

Great white sharks in the Mediterranean Sea are facing a serious threat of extinction, with poaching being a significant driver to their alarming decline.

This assessment is based on research by scientists, who collaborated with an marine preservation group. They report that various at-risk marine animals – such as the great white – are found on sale in fish markets across North Africa.

Great white sharks are one of in excess of 20 Mediterranean shark species safeguarded by global treaties, which makes it illegal to target them or to offer them for sale.

However, by monitoring fishing ports along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, scientists uncovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been slaughtered in that region in the single year of 2025.

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

One video showed a large great white being hauled ashore from a trawler in an Algerian port. Another, filmed in Tunisia, shows parts of what is believed to be a short-finned mako shark, which is also a species at risk.

Remaining Habitat

The lead researcher, explained that many shark populations – great whites especially – had declined dramatically in the Mediterranean in the last few decades.

"No other stretch of water is fished like the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The impact of industrial fishing has been intensifying... and it's likely that they will become extinct in the coming years."

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

In their new mission to find and study the animals, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area considered a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

A primary objective of their expedition was to deploy a tracking device onto a white shark – something that has not yet been accomplished in the Mediterranean Sea.

To try this, the researchers used over three tons of fish bait – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and hundreds of liters of scent oil to create a "oil slick" that many sharks can sense from far off.

Despite working for two weeks – baiting the ocean, collecting water samples to search for shark DNA and using subsea cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any specimens.

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

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

While the team was searching for surviving sharks, they also learned that a juvenile great white had been caught and killed in a regional fishery – just not far from where they were working.

It is not clear whether that specimen was caught by accident in fishing gear, or if it was deliberately caught.

The team, however, believes 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.

Sharks for Sale

The scientists, along with regional contacts, are monitoring several fishing ports in the region. Documentation shows that endangered sharks are captured, brought to port, and sold in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.

The rules that protect sharks are complicated. Currently, numerous species have international legal protection – such as makos, angel sharks, threshers, and hammerheads.

An multinational pact states that those species cannot be "kept on boats, transferred, landed, stored, or sold".

The agreement mandates "they must be returned to the sea alive [where] possible". Those rules are not designed for incidental capture and compliance varies from nation to nation.

A expert noted that his own investigation found multiple white sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a seeming silver lining 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 hope for revival."

Possible Solutions

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishing communities who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to feed their family, or return a threatened species to the ocean.

"Why would they discard their catch into the sea when they must feed their households?" asked a scientist. "If you assist and guide them in more responsible fishing, they will not catch protected species."

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

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