The Great White Are on the Brink of Disappearing in the Mediterranean, Experts Report

These formidable predators in the Mediterranean waters are facing a serious threat of extinction, with poaching being a major contributor to their worrying decrease.

This finding is based on research by scientists, who collaborated with an marine preservation group. They indicate that various at-risk marine animals – including great white sharks – are found on sale in ports across the North African coast.

Great whites are one of more than 20 Mediterranean shark species shielded by international agreements, which makes it illegal to target them or to sell them.

However, by observing harbors along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, the research team found that at least 40 great white sharks have been killed there in just the past year.

Videos shared online showing protected sharks being unloaded in North African ports has been confirmed.

One video showed a sizeable great white shark being dragged onto land from a fishing boat in an Algerian port. A separate video, taken in a Tunisian location, shows parts of what is believed to be a short-finned mako shark, which is also a species at risk.

Remaining Habitat

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

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

The Mediterranean white shark population is now classified as Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In their most recent effort to find and study the predators, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area considered a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

One key aim of their project was to deploy a tracking device onto a shark – something that has remained unachieved in the Mediterranean Sea.

To try this, the researchers used a large amount of fish bait – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and a substantial volume of scent oil to create a "fat slick" that many sharks can sense from far off.

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

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

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

During their search for surviving sharks, they also learned that a juvenile great white had been captured and killed in a North African fishery – just 20 nautical miles from where they were working.

It is not clear whether that specimen was caught by accident in nets or lines, or if it was hunted.

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

Illegal Shark Trade

The scientists, along with local partners, are keeping watch on multiple ports in the region. Evidence shows that sharks under protection are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including the region.

The regulations safeguarding sharks are complicated. Currently, two dozen endangered species have global protection – such as makos, angel sharks, threshers, and hammerheads.

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

The agreement specifies "they must be returned to the sea alive [where] possible". Those rules are not designed for accidental bycatch and implementation differs from one place to another.

A expert noted that his own research found multiple white sharks 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 protect this, there is a chance of recovery."

Possible Solutions

In less affluent areas in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the choice 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 need food for their children?" asked a local expert. "If you assist and guide them in more selective fishing, they will not catch white sharks."

Another expert added that if countries around the Mediterranean worked together, "there is hope."

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