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The iconic great white in the Mediterranean waters are on the verge of vanishing, with unlawful fishing practices being a key factor to their worrying decrease.

This finding is based on studies conducted by experts, who partnered with an marine preservation group. They indicate that some of the most threatened species – including great white sharks – are found on sale in marketplaces across Northern African nations.

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

However, by surveying docks along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, investigators discovered 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 sharks under protection being brought dead into North African ports has been confirmed.

A particular clip showed a large great white being hauled ashore from a fishing boat in an Algerian port. A separate video, taken in a Tunisian location, shows remains and fins of what appears to be a mako shark, which is also a protected and endangered species.

Final Refuge

The project head, explained that many shark populations – particularly great whites – had suffered a severe drop in the Mediterranean in recent decades.

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

The Mediterranean great whites is now listed as Critically Endangered by the global conservation union.

In their most recent effort to locate and research the sharks, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area known as a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several endangered shark species.

One key aim of their project was to fit a satellite tracking tag onto a shark – something that has not yet been accomplished in the Mediterranean Sea.

To do this, the researchers used more than three tonnes of chum – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and 500 litres of tuna oil to create a "oil slick" that many sharks can smell from hundreds of metres away.

Despite working for two weeks – baiting the ocean, sampling for DNA to test for environmental DNA and using subsea cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any animals to tag.

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

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

While the team was searching for living sharks, they also learned that a juvenile great white had been taken in a regional fishery – just a short distance from where they were working.

It is not clear whether that specimen was caught by accident in fishing gear, or if it was deliberately caught.

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

Protected Sharks Traded

The team, along with local partners, are monitoring several fishing ports in the region. Findings shows that endangered sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including the region.

The rules that protect sharks are multifaceted. Currently, two dozen endangered species have treaty-based safeguards – like makos 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 states "they must be released unharmed and alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address incidental capture and implementation differs from nation to nation.

A conservationist noted that his own inquiry found a number of 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 preserve this, there is a possibility of comeback."

What Can Be Done?

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishing communities who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to earn a livelihood, or release a protected animal to the ocean.

"Why would they release sharks into the sea when they require sustenance for their families?" asked a regional marine biologist. "If you assist and guide them in more sustainable fishing, they will not catch protected species."

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

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