A Great White Shark was filmed underwater in the Strait of Sicily by a team of volunteer divers who were clearing ghost nets from a shipwreck, in what is believed to be the first diver-filmed underwater footage of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean.
The team, made up of the Healthy Seas Foundation, Ghost Diving and the Society for Documentation of Submerged Sites, encountered the great white shark during one of their clearing operations. The divers were working at a depth of around 40 metres when the shark emerged from the blue.
The footage was filmed by volunteer diver Derk Remmers, who was part of the ghost-net removal mission. The divers were not in the water to search for sharks, but to remove abandoned fishing nets from a wreck — the same kind of ghost gear that continues to trap marine life long after it has been discarded or lost at sea.
The sighting is highly unusual not because great white sharks are alien to the Mediterranean, but because they have become extremely rare. Great white sharks are native to the Mediterranean, and the Strait of Sicily is one of the areas where they have historically been recorded. But decades of overfishing, bycatch and weak enforcement have pushed the species to the brink in the region.
The Mediterranean great white shark population is considered critically endangered, and researchers have warned that it may disappear from the region if stronger protection is not enforced. The central Mediterranean, including the Sicilian Channel, is one of the most heavily fished parts of the sea, with industrial fishing fleets from several countries operating in the area.
Mediterranean white sharks remain heavily depleted due to intensive coastal and industrial fishing. Conservation groups have also warned that illegal fishing and accidental catches are still killing great white sharks despite existing protections.
The footage shows that great white sharks still survive in the central Mediterranean, but also underlines how rare they have become. A healthy Mediterranean should not treat the appearance of one of its native apex predators as an extraordinary event.
The same operation also highlights another part of the problem: ghost nets. These abandoned nets can become entangled in reefs, wrecks and other underwater structures, continuing to kill fish, turtles, sharks and other marine life. Healthy Seas and Ghost Diving have been working across the Mediterranean to remove this kind of fishing debris from wrecks and return the recovered material for recycling.
You can watch the footage in a Euro News feature here.
Feature image from Euro News.
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