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Great white sharks in the Mediterranean waters are facing a serious threat of extinction, with unlawful fishing practices being a key factor to their alarming decline.

This conclusion is based on studies conducted by experts, who worked alongside an marine preservation group. They report that several critically endangered species – including great white sharks – are appearing for sale in fish markets across Northern African nations.

Great white sharks are one of in excess of 20 Mediterranean shark species safeguarded by global treaties, which prohibits to fish for them or to sell them.

However, by monitoring fishing ports 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 the single year of 2025.

Footage from social media showing protected sharks being unloaded in North African ports has been authenticated.

A particular clip showed a large great white being dragged onto land from a vessel in Algeria. A separate video, filmed in Tunisia, shows heads and fins of what is believed to be a short-finned mako shark, which is also a threatened and protected species.

Final Refuge

The lead researcher, explained that many shark populations – great whites especially – had suffered a severe drop in the Mediterranean in recent decades.

"No other body of water is fished like the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been increasing... and it's plausible that they will vanish in the coming years."

The Mediterranean great whites is now designated as Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In their latest attempt to locate and research the sharks, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area identified as a "final refuge" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

One key aim of their expedition was to fit a satellite tracking tag onto a 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 fish parts and hundreds of liters of fish oil to create a "scent trail" that many sharks can smell from hundreds of metres away.

Despite working for two weeks – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to look for genetic material and using remote cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any sharks to tag.

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

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

As the team searched for living sharks, they also learned that a juvenile great white had been taken in a North African fishery – just not far from where they were working.

It is unknown whether that shark was ensnared unintentionally in fishing gear, or if it was deliberately caught.

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

Protected Sharks Traded

The team, along with local partners, are observing various harbors in the region. Findings shows that sharks under protection are captured, brought to port, and sold in countries including the region.

The regulations safeguarding sharks are complex. Currently, 24 threatened species have global 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 unintentional catch and enforcement is variable from one place to another.

A marine advocate noted that his own investigation found a number of sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a paradoxical element of hope in the fact that white sharks were appearing in trade.

"It shows that there is wildlife left," he said. "And if we can protect this, there is a hope for revival."

Possible Solutions

In less affluent areas in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to feed their family, or release a protected animal to the ocean.

"Why would they release sharks into the sea when they need food for their children?" asked a scientist. "If you support them and train them in more sustainable fishing, they will not catch these sharks."

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

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