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These formidable predators in the Mediterranean waters are facing a serious threat of extinction, with illegal fishing being a significant driver to their rapid population drop.

This assessment is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who worked alongside an international conservation charity. They report that some of the most threatened species – including great white sharks – are being sold in fish markets across the North African coast.

Great white sharks are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which prohibits to fish for them or to trade them.

However, by observing harbors along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, the research team uncovered that no fewer than 40 great white sharks have been caught and killed there in 2025 alone.

Footage from social media showing sharks under protection being brought dead into North African ports has been independently verified.

One video showed a sizeable great white shark being hauled ashore from a trawler in Algeria. Additional footage, taken in a Tunisian location, shows remains and fins of what looks like a mako shark, which is also a protected and endangered species.

Last Shark Stronghold

The lead researcher, 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 exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The impact of industrial fishing has been intensifying... and it's possible that they will vanish in the coming years."

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

In their new mission to locate and research the sharks, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area considered a "final refuge" in the Mediterranean for several endangered shark species.

A primary objective of their mission was to deploy a tracking device onto a white shark – something that has never been done in the Mediterranean Sea.

To attempt this, the researchers used more than three tonnes of chum – including frozen fish parts and a substantial volume of tuna oil to create a "scent trail" 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 subsea cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any specimens.

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

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

During their search for living sharks, they also received reports that a young great white shark had been captured and killed in a North African fishery – just not far from where they were working.

It is unknown whether that specimen was accidentally caught in fishing gear, or if it was targeted.

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. Documentation shows that endangered sharks are captured, brought to port, and sold in countries including several North African nations.

The rules that protect sharks are multifaceted. Currently, two dozen endangered species have global protection – such as makos, angel sharks, threshers, and hammerheads.

An regional treaty states that those species cannot be "retained on board, transhipped, landed, transferred, stored, sold or displayed or offered for sale".

The agreement specifies "they must be released alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address accidental bycatch and enforcement is variable from nation to nation.

A conservationist noted that his own research found multiple white 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 animals still there," he said. "And if we can protect this, there is a hope for revival."

The Path Forward

In less affluent areas in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the dilemma of whether to earn a livelihood, or throw back an endangered shark to the ocean.

"Why would they discard their catch into the sea when they need food for their children?" asked a scientist. "If you provide alternatives and education in more selective fishing, they will not catch these sharks."

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

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