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The iconic great white in the Mediterranean Sea are facing a serious threat of extinction, with poaching being a major contributor to their alarming decline.

This assessment is based on studies conducted by experts, who worked alongside an ocean protection organization. They report that various at-risk marine animals – such as the great white – are being sold in marketplaces across North Africa.

Great white sharks are one of more than 20 Mediterranean shark species shielded by international agreements, which makes it illegal to target them or to sell them.

However, by monitoring fishing ports along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, scientists discovered that no fewer than 40 great white sharks have been slaughtered in that region in the single year of 2025.

Footage from social media showing endangered sharks being brought dead into North African ports has been confirmed.

One video showed a large great white being hauled ashore from a trawler in Algeria. A separate video, filmed in Tunisia, shows remains and fins of what is believed to be a protected mako, which is also a protected and endangered species.

Remaining Habitat

The project head, clarified that many shark species – particularly great whites – had plummeted in the Mediterranean in the last few decades.

"No other body of water is fished like the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been growing... and it's plausible that they will go extinct in the foreseeable future."

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

In their new mission to find and study the predators, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area identified as a "final refuge" in the Mediterranean for several sharks at risk.

An important goal of their expedition was to deploy a tracking device onto a shark – something that has not yet been accomplished in the Mediterranean Sea.

To attempt this, the researchers used over three tons of bait – including baitfish and hundreds of liters of scent oil to create a "oil slick" that many sharks can detect from a great distance.

After two weeks of work – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to test for environmental DNA and using subsea cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any sharks to tag.

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

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

As the team searched for living sharks, they also were informed that a small 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 specimen was accidentally caught in gear, or if it was deliberately caught.

The team, however, calculates that more than 40 great white sharks have been caught around that coast. "This is a lot for a critically endangered population," the researcher emphasized.

Protected Sharks Traded

The team, along with local partners, are keeping watch on multiple ports in the region. Evidence shows that protected sharks are taken and traded in countries including the region.

The protective legislation are complex. Currently, 24 threatened species have global protection – like makos and hammerheads.

An international agreement states that those species cannot be "kept on boats, transferred, landed, stored, or sold".

The agreement specifies "they must be released unharmed and alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address accidental bycatch and implementation differs from country to country.

A expert noted that his own inquiry 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 wildlife left," he said. "And if we can protect this, there is a possibility of comeback."

Possible Solutions

In less affluent areas in North Africa, fishermen who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to feed their family, or release a protected animal to the ocean.

"Why would they discard their catch into the sea when they need food for their children?" asked a scientist. "If you support them and train them in more responsible fishing, they will not catch protected species."

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

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