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The iconic great white in the Mediterranean Sea are facing a serious threat of extinction, with unlawful fishing practices being a major contributor to their rapid population drop.

This finding is based on research by scientists, who collaborated with an international conservation charity. They report that several critically endangered species – like the great white shark – are appearing for sale in fish markets across North Africa.

Great whites are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which makes it illegal to catch them or to trade them.

However, by monitoring fishing ports along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, the research team discovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been caught and killed there in the single year of 2025.

Videos shared online showing endangered sharks being unloaded in North African ports has been authenticated.

One video showed a big shark being dragged onto land from a trawler in Algeria. A separate video, recorded in Tunisia, shows remains and fins of what looks like a mako shark, which is also a threatened and protected species.

Last Shark Stronghold

The lead researcher, stated that many populations of sharks – white sharks in particular – had suffered a severe drop in the Mediterranean in the past years.

"No other sea is fished like the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been intensifying... and it's likely that they will go extinct in the near future."

The Mediterranean white shark population is now listed as Critically Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

In their latest attempt to track and analyze the sharks, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area known as a "final refuge" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

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

To do this, the researchers used more than three tonnes of bait – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and a substantial volume of tuna oil to create a "fat slick" that many sharks can sense from far off.

Even after a fortnight of effort – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to look for genetic material and using remote cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any animals to tag.

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

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

As the team searched for living sharks, they also were informed that a small great white had been captured and killed in a regional fishery – just a short distance from where they were working.

It is uncertain whether that specimen was ensnared unintentionally in gear, or if it was deliberately caught.

The team, however, estimates that in excess of 40 great white sharks have been caught around that coast. "This is a lot for a critically endangered population," the researcher emphasized.

Sharks for Sale

The researchers, along with local partners, are observing various harbors in the region. Findings shows that protected sharks are taken and traded in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.

The protective legislation are complex. Currently, two dozen endangered species have international legal protection – like makos 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 specifies "they must be released alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address incidental capture and implementation differs from nation to nation.

A conservationist noted that his own research found multiple white sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a unexpected hopeful sign in the fact that white sharks were turning up for sale.

"It shows that there is life remaining," he said. "And if we can protect this, there is a possibility of comeback."

The Path Forward

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the dilemma of whether to provide for their families, or throw back an endangered shark to the ocean.

"Why would they release sharks into the sea when they require sustenance for their families?" asked a local expert. "If you assist and guide them in more responsible 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."