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

This finding is based on research by scientists, who worked alongside an international conservation charity. They report that several critically endangered species – like the great white shark – are being sold in fish markets across the North African coast.

These sharks are one of more than 20 Mediterranean shark species safeguarded by global treaties, which makes it illegal to target them or to trade them.

However, by surveying docks along the North African Mediterranean shoreline, scientists discovered that at least 40 great white sharks have been caught and killed there in 2025 alone.

Social media clips showing sharks under protection being landed at North African ports has been authenticated.

One video showed a sizeable great white shark being dragged onto land from a trawler in Algeria. Another, recorded in Tunisia, shows remains and fins of what appears to be a protected mako, which is also a protected and endangered species.

Remaining Habitat

The project head, clarified that many populations of sharks – great whites especially – had plummeted in the Mediterranean in the past years.

"No other stretch of water is exploited as heavily as the Mediterranean Sea," he said. "The consequences of commercial fishing has been increasing... and it's plausible that they will go extinct in the coming years."

The Mediterranean great whites is now designated as Critically Endangered by the global conservation union.

In their most recent effort to find and study the animals, the team worked in the Sicilian Strait – an area considered a "final refuge" in the Mediterranean for several sharks at risk.

One key aim of their expedition was to attach a satellite tag onto a shark – something that has never been done in the Mediterranean Sea.

To do this, the researchers used over three tons of bait – including frozen fish parts and hundreds of liters of scent oil to create a "oil slick" that many sharks can sense from far off.

Despite working for two weeks – baiting the ocean, taking samples of seawater to search for shark DNA and using subsea cameras – the researchers did not manage to find any specimens.

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

"It's discouraging," the lead researcher said. "It just shows how depleted this habitat is."

While the team was searching for living sharks, they also were informed that a young great white shark had been taken in a North African fishery – just not far from where they were working.

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

The team, however, believes that in excess of 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 scientists, along with colleagues in North Africa, are keeping watch on multiple ports in the region. Findings shows that protected sharks are caught, landed and offered for sale in countries including the region.

The regulations safeguarding sharks are multifaceted. Currently, 24 threatened species have international legal 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 returned to the sea alive [where] possible". Those rules do not address incidental capture and implementation differs from nation to nation.

A marine advocate noted that his own research found multiple white sharks on sale. But, he said, there was a paradoxical element of hope in the fact that white sharks were appearing in trade.

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

The Path Forward

In poorer communities in North Africa, fishers who catch sharks might face the choice of whether to earn a livelihood, or return a threatened species to the ocean.

"Why would they throw sharks back into the sea when they must feed their households?" asked a local expert. "If you support them and train them in more sustainable fishing, they will not catch white sharks."

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

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