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Great white sharks in the Mediterranean waters are facing a serious threat of extinction, with poaching being a key factor to their rapid population drop.

This assessment is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who collaborated with an marine preservation group. They indicate that various at-risk marine animals – such as the great white – are appearing for sale in marketplaces across North Africa.

These sharks are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which makes it illegal to fish for them or to offer them for sale.

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

Footage from social media showing protected sharks being brought dead into North African ports has been authenticated.

One piece of footage showed a big shark being dragged onto land from a vessel in an Algerian port. Additional footage, recorded in Tunisia, shows heads and fins of what appears to be a protected mako, which is also a species at risk.

Remaining Habitat

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

"No other stretch of water is subjected to such fishing pressure as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been intensifying... and it's possible that they will go extinct in the foreseeable future."

The Mediterranean great whites is now designated as Critically Endangered by the global conservation union.

In their latest attempt to find and study the animals, the team worked in the Strait of Sicily – an area identified as a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

An important goal of their mission was to fit a satellite tracking tag onto a great white – something that has never been done in the Mediterranean Sea.

To do this, the researchers used over three tons of bait – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and 500 litres of scent oil to create a "fat slick" that many sharks can detect from a great distance.

Even after a fortnight of effort – chumming the water, sampling for DNA to look for genetic material and using underwater cameras – the researchers were unable to locate any sharks to tag.

They captured only a brief glimpse of one blue shark species 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 learned that a young great white shark had been taken in a North African fishery – just 20 nautical miles from where they were working.

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

The team, however, estimates that over forty 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 colleagues in North Africa, 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 rules that protect sharks are multifaceted. Currently, two dozen endangered species have treaty-based safeguards – including mako, angel, 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 released unharmed and alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address incidental capture and enforcement is variable from country to country.

A marine advocate noted that his own inquiry found several great whites on sale. But, he said, there was a paradoxical element of hope in the fact that white sharks were being found in markets.

"It shows that there is wildlife left," he said. "And if we can preserve this, there is a chance of recovery."

The Path Forward

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishing communities who catch sharks might face the decision of whether to earn a livelihood, or return a threatened species to the ocean.

"Why would they throw sharks back into the sea when they must feed their households?" asked a scientist. "If you provide alternatives and education in more sustainable fishing, they will not catch protected species."

A conservationist added that if countries around the Mediterranean collaborated, "there is hope."

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