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Great white sharks in the Mediterranean basin are in danger of disappearing, with poaching being a key factor to their alarming decline.

This assessment is based on research by scientists, who worked alongside an international conservation charity. They note that various at-risk marine animals – like the great white shark – are found on sale in marketplaces across the North African coast.

Great whites are one of more than 20 Mediterranean shark species shielded by international agreements, which renders it unlawful to target them or to offer them for sale.

However, by observing harbors along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, investigators uncovered that at least 40 great white sharks have been caught and killed there in the single year of 2025.

Social media clips showing sharks under protection being brought dead into North African ports has been authenticated.

One piece of footage showed a large great white being pulled from a boat 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.

Final Refuge

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

"No other sea 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 go extinct in the coming years."

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

In their new mission to track and analyze the animals, the team worked in the waters between Sicily and North Africa – an area known as a "final refuge" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

An important goal of their expedition was to attach a satellite tag onto a great white – something that has never been done in the Mediterranean Sea.

To do this, the researchers used over three tons of bait – including frozen fish parts and hundreds of liters of tuna oil to create a "scent trail" that many sharks can smell from hundreds of metres away.

After two weeks of work – chumming the water, collecting water samples to look for genetic material and using remote cameras – the researchers were unable to locate any specimens.

They captured only a short sighting of one blue shark species on their underwater cameras.

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

While the team was searching for living sharks, they also learned that a juvenile great white had been caught and killed in a fishery off North Africa – just not far from where they were working.

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

The team, however, believes 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 scientists, along with local partners, are monitoring several fishing ports in the region. Evidence shows that endangered sharks are captured, brought to port, and sold in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.

The protective legislation are complex. 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 mandates "they must be returned to the sea alive [where] possible". Those rules do not tackle incidental capture and enforcement is variable from one place to another.

A conservationist noted that his own research found several great whites on sale. But, he said, there was a seeming silver lining in the fact that white sharks were appearing in trade.

"It shows that there is animals still there," he said. "And if we can preserve this, there is a hope for revival."

What Can Be Done?

In less affluent areas 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 need food for their children?" asked a regional marine biologist. "If you support them and train them in more sustainable fishing, they will not catch these sharks."

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

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