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These formidable predators in the Mediterranean basin are on the verge of vanishing, with unlawful fishing practices being a significant driver to their worrying decrease.

This finding is based on studies conducted by experts, who worked alongside an international conservation charity. They indicate that various at-risk marine animals – including great white sharks – are found on sale in marketplaces across Northern African nations.

Great whites are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which makes it illegal to catch them or to trade them.

However, by surveying docks along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, scientists found that no fewer than 40 great white sharks have been killed there in the single year of 2025.

Social media clips showing protected sharks being brought dead into North African ports has been independently verified.

One piece of footage showed a large great white being pulled from a boat from a trawler in an Algerian port. Another, taken in a Tunisian location, shows heads and fins of what looks like a short-finned mako shark, which is also a threatened and protected species.

Remaining Habitat

The lead researcher, explained that many shark populations – white sharks in particular – had declined dramatically in the Mediterranean in the last few decades.

"No other stretch of water is exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The consequences of commercial fishing has been intensifying... and it's likely that they will vanish in the foreseeable future."

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

In their most recent effort to locate and research the sharks, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area identified as a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several sharks at risk.

One key aim of their expedition was to fit a satellite tracking tag onto a white shark – something that has remained unachieved in the Mediterranean Sea.

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

After two weeks of work – laying bait, collecting water samples to test for environmental DNA and using remote cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any animals to tag.

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

"It's discouraging," the lead researcher said. "It just shows how damaged this marine environment is."

During their search for living sharks, they also learned that a small great white had been captured and killed in a fishery off North Africa – just not far from where they were working.

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

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

Sharks for Sale

The team, along with colleagues in North Africa, are monitoring several fishing ports in the region. Documentation shows that sharks under protection are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including the region.

The protective legislation 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 "retained on board, transhipped, landed, transferred, stored, sold or displayed or offered for sale".

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

A expert noted that his own inquiry found several great whites on sale. But, he said, there was a unexpected hopeful sign in the fact that white sharks were appearing in trade.

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

Possible Solutions

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the dilemma of whether to feed their family, or release a protected animal to the ocean.

"Why would they throw sharks back into the sea when they require sustenance for their families?" asked a local expert. "If you support them and train them in more responsible fishing, they will not catch protected species."

Another expert added that if countries around the Mediterranean joined forces, "there is hope."

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