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These formidable predators in the Mediterranean Sea are facing a serious threat of extinction, with poaching being a significant driver to their alarming decline.

This assessment is based on research by scientists, who collaborated with an ocean protection organization. They note that several critically endangered species – like the great white shark – are appearing for sale in fish markets across Northern African nations.

Great white sharks are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species safeguarded by global treaties, which prohibits to target them or to offer them for sale.

However, by observing harbors along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, investigators discovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been caught and killed there in the single year of 2025.

Social media clips showing protected sharks being landed at North African ports has been independently verified.

One video showed a big shark being hauled ashore from a fishing boat in Algeria. Additional footage, recorded in Tunisia, shows heads and fins of what looks like a protected mako, which is also a threatened and protected species.

Remaining Habitat

The principal scientist, explained that many shark species – great whites especially – had declined dramatically 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 growing... and it's likely that they will become extinct in the coming years."

The population of great whites in the Mediterranean is now classified as Critically Endangered by the key international body.

In their new mission to locate and research the sharks, 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.

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

To do this, the researchers used over three tons of chum – including frozen fish parts and hundreds of liters of fish oil to create a "fat slick" that many sharks can detect from a great distance.

Despite working for two weeks – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to look for genetic material and using underwater cameras – the researchers were unable to locate any animals to tag.

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

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

During their search for living sharks, they also learned that a juvenile great white had been caught and killed in a North African fishery – just not far from where they were working.

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

The team, however, believes 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.

Illegal Shark Trade

The researchers, along with regional contacts, are monitoring several fishing ports in the region. Evidence shows that endangered sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.

The protective legislation are complex. Currently, two dozen endangered species have international legal protection – including mako, angel, threshers and hammerheads.

An regional treaty 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 are not designed for incidental capture and implementation differs from nation to nation.

A marine advocate 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 turning up for sale.

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

The Path Forward

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishermen who catch sharks might face the dilemma of whether to feed their family, or throw back an endangered shark to the ocean.

"Why would they throw sharks back into the sea when they must feed their households?" asked a local expert. "If you provide alternatives and education in more selective fishing, they will not catch these sharks."

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

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