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These formidable predators in the Mediterranean Sea are facing a serious threat of extinction, with unlawful fishing practices being a key factor to their rapid population drop.

This assessment is based on investigations carried out by researchers, who worked alongside an marine preservation group. They indicate that several critically endangered species – including great white sharks – are being sold in fish markets across North Africa.

These sharks are one of over twenty Mediterranean shark species safeguarded by global treaties, which makes it illegal to fish for them or to offer them for sale.

However, by surveying docks along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, the research team uncovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been killed there in the single year of 2025.

Footage from social media showing sharks under protection being unloaded in North African ports has been confirmed.

One piece of footage showed a big shark being hauled ashore from a vessel in Algeria. Another, filmed in Tunisia, shows heads and fins of what looks like a protected mako, which is also a threatened and protected species.

Last Shark Stronghold

The lead researcher, clarified that many populations of sharks – particularly great whites – had suffered a severe drop in the Mediterranean in recent decades.

"No other sea is exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The consequences of commercial fishing has been increasing... and it's possible that they will become extinct in the foreseeable future."

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

In their latest attempt to locate and research the sharks, the team worked in the Strait of Sicily – an area considered a "key remaining habitat" in the Mediterranean for several threatened shark species.

An important goal of their expedition was to attach a satellite tag onto a 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 hundreds of liters of tuna oil to create a "scent trail" that many sharks can detect from a great distance.

Despite working for two weeks – chumming the water, taking samples of seawater to test for environmental DNA and using remote cameras – the researchers failed to encounter any sharks to tag.

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

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

While the team was searching for surviving sharks, they also received reports that a small great white had been caught and killed in a North African fishery – just a short distance from where they were working.

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

The team, however, calculates that over forty great white sharks have been taken along that coastline. "This is a lot for a critically endangered population," the researcher emphasized.

Sharks for Sale

The researchers, along with colleagues in North Africa, are monitoring several fishing ports in the region. Evidence shows that protected sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including several North African nations.

The rules that protect sharks are complicated. Currently, numerous species have global protection – like makos and hammerheads.

An regional treaty states that those species cannot be "retained on board, transhipped, landed, transferred, stored, sold or displayed or offered for sale".

The agreement states "they must be released unharmed and alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address incidental capture and compliance varies from country to country.

A conservationist noted that his own investigation found a number of sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a seeming silver lining in the fact that white sharks were being found in markets.

"It shows that there is wildlife left," he said. "And if we can safeguard this, there is a hope for revival."

The Path Forward

In economically challenged regions in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to earn a livelihood, or release a protected animal to the ocean.

"Why would they release sharks 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 white sharks."

An advocate added that if countries around the Mediterranean collaborated, "there is hope."

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