Great white sharks—icons of the ocean, apex predators, living legends—are quietly vanishing from the Mediterranean.
And the reason isn’t mysterious. It’s nets, markets, and a system that’s failing to protect what little remains.
According to US scientists working with the UK’s Blue Marine Foundation, illegal fishing is pushing these sharks toward the edge.
Despite being protected under international law, great whites are still being caught and sold in North African fish markets.
In 2025 alone, researchers estimate at least 40 great whites were killed along that coast.
For a species already classified as Critically Endangered, that number is devastating.
“No other stretch of water is fished like the Mediterranean,” says Dr Francesco Ferretti of Virginia Tech.
Industrial fishing pressure, he warns, is so intense that extinction is now a real possibility.
Sharks Facing Extinction
His team searched the Strait of Sicily—considered the sharks’ last Mediterranean stronghold—for two weeks.
Tons of bait. High-tech cameras. DNA sampling. The result? Almost nothing. Just a fleeting glimpse of a blue shark.
“It’s disheartening,” Ferretti admits. “It shows how degraded this ecosystem is.”
Footage verified by the BBC shows protected sharks hauled into ports in Algeria and Tunisia.
Their fins and heads are prepared for sale.The laws exist. Enforcement doesn’t always.
Still, conservationists see a sliver of hope. “It means wildlife is still there,” says James Glancy of Blue Marine.
The question is: will we act fast enough to save it—or watch it disappear?
