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These formidable predators in the Mediterranean waters are facing a serious threat of extinction, with poaching being a major contributor to their alarming decline.

This finding is based on research by scientists, who partnered with an international conservation charity. They note that various at-risk marine animals – including great white sharks – are appearing for sale in fish markets across the North African coast.

Great whites are one of in excess of 20 Mediterranean shark species protected under international law, which prohibits to catch them or to sell them.

However, by monitoring fishing ports along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, scientists uncovered that a minimum of forty great white sharks have been caught and killed there in 2025 alone.

Footage from social media showing endangered sharks being unloaded in North African ports has been authenticated.

One video showed a sizeable great white shark being pulled from a boat from a vessel in an Algerian port. Additional footage, recorded in Tunisia, shows heads and fins of what is believed to be a short-finned mako shark, which is also a protected and endangered species.

Final Refuge

The lead researcher, explained that many shark species – great whites especially – had suffered a severe drop in the Mediterranean in the last few decades.

"No other body of water is exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The effects of large-scale fishing has been growing... and it's possible that they will become extinct in the coming years."

The Mediterranean great whites is now designated as Critically Endangered by the key international body.

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

An important goal of their expedition was to attach a satellite tag onto a white shark – something that has never been done in the Mediterranean Sea.

To attempt this, the researchers used a large amount of fish bait – including frozen mackerel and tuna scraps and 500 litres of scent oil to create a "scent trail" that many sharks can smell from hundreds of metres away.

After two weeks of work – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to test for environmental DNA and using underwater cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any animals to tag.

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

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

As the team searched for surviving sharks, they also were informed that a juvenile great white had been captured 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 fishing gear, or if it was targeted.

The team, however, believes that in excess of 40 great white sharks have been taken along that coastline. "This is a lot for a critically endangered population," the researcher emphasized.

Illegal Shark Trade

The team, along with colleagues in North Africa, are observing various harbors in the region. Findings shows that sharks under protection are taken and traded in countries including Tunisia and Algeria.

The rules that protect sharks are multifaceted. Currently, 24 threatened species have international legal protection – such as makos, angel sharks, threshers, 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 returned to the sea alive [where] possible". Those rules do not tackle accidental bycatch and enforcement is variable from country to country.

A marine advocate noted that his own research found several great whites on sale. But, he said, there was a paradoxical element of hope 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 safeguard this, there is a chance of recovery."

The Path Forward

In economically challenged regions in North Africa, fishing communities 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 discard their catch into the sea when they must feed their households?" asked a scientist. "If you support them and train them in more selective fishing, they will not catch protected species."

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

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