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

This assessment is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who partnered with an international conservation charity. They report that some of the most threatened species – including great white sharks – are appearing for sale in ports across North Africa.

These sharks are one of in excess of 20 Mediterranean shark species safeguarded by global treaties, which makes it illegal to fish for them or to trade them.

However, by observing harbors along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, investigators discovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been slaughtered in that region in 2025 alone.

Social media clips showing endangered sharks being landed at North African ports has been independently verified.

One piece of footage showed a big shark being hauled ashore from a trawler in Algeria. Another, taken in a Tunisian location, shows remains and fins of what looks like a mako shark, which is also a species at risk.

Last Shark Stronghold

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

"No other body of water is exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been growing... and it's plausible that they will vanish in the near future."

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

In their new mission to find and study the sharks, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area identified as a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several endangered shark species.

One key aim of their mission was to deploy a tracking device onto a shark – something that has never been done in the Mediterranean Sea.

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

Even after a fortnight of effort – chumming the water, sampling for DNA to search for shark DNA and using underwater cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any animals to tag.

They captured only a fleeting sighting of one blue shark on their submarine cameras.

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

While the team was searching for surviving sharks, they also were informed that a young great white shark had been taken in a North African fishery – just a short distance from where they were working.

It is uncertain whether that shark was caught by accident in gear, or if it was deliberately caught.

The team, however, estimates that over forty 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 scientists, along with regional contacts, are keeping watch on multiple ports in the region. Evidence shows that endangered sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.

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

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

The agreement states "they must be released alive [where] possible". Those rules are not designed for unintentional catch and implementation differs from nation to nation.

A marine advocate noted that his own research found a number of sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a paradoxical element of hope 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 safeguard this, there is a hope for revival."

Possible Solutions

In economically challenged regions in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to earn a livelihood, or release a protected animal to the ocean.

"Why would they discard their catch into the sea when they must feed their households?" asked a local expert. "If you provide alternatives and education in more responsible fishing, they will not catch protected species."

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

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