🔗 Share this article

Great white sharks in the Mediterranean basin are in danger of disappearing, with unlawful fishing practices being a key factor to their worrying decrease.

This assessment is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who partnered with an marine preservation group. They report that various at-risk marine animals – including great white sharks – are being sold in fish markets across the North African coast.

Great white sharks are one of more than 20 Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which renders it unlawful to target them or to sell them.

However, by observing harbors along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, scientists uncovered that no fewer than 40 great white sharks have been slaughtered in that region in just the past year.

Social media clips showing endangered sharks being brought dead into North African ports has been confirmed.

One piece of footage showed a large great white being dragged onto land from a trawler 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 threatened and protected species.

Last Shark Stronghold

The project head, stated that many populations of sharks – particularly great whites – had plummeted in the Mediterranean in recent decades.

"No other sea is exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The consequences of commercial fishing has been increasing... and it's plausible that they will vanish in the near future."

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

In their most recent effort to track and analyze the animals, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area known as a "last stronghold" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

An important goal of their project was to fit a satellite tracking tag onto a shark – something that has remained unachieved in the Mediterranean Sea.

To do this, the researchers used over three tons of bait – including frozen fish parts and 500 litres of fish oil to create a "scent trail" that many sharks can sense from far off.

Even after a fortnight of effort – chumming the water, taking samples of seawater to test for environmental DNA and using underwater cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any specimens.

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

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

As the team searched for living sharks, they also learned that a small great white had been captured and killed in a regional fishery – just not far from where they were working.

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

The team, however, estimates 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.

Sharks for Sale

The team, along with colleagues in North Africa, are keeping watch on multiple ports in the region. Findings shows that endangered sharks are captured, brought to port, and sold in countries including several North African nations.

The rules that protect sharks are complex. Currently, 24 threatened species have international legal protection – such as makos, angel sharks, threshers, and hammerheads.

An international agreement 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 released unharmed and alive [where] possible". Those rules do not tackle unintentional catch and enforcement is variable from country to country.

A marine advocate noted that his own research found several great whites on sale. But, he said, there was a unexpected hopeful sign in the fact that white sharks were being found in markets.

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

What Can Be Done?

In less affluent areas in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the dilemma of whether to earn a livelihood, or return a threatened species to the ocean.

"Why would they release sharks 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 these sharks."

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

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