Divers from Healthy Seas have captured footage of a great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea, believed to be the first ever captured of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea in its natural habitat. The sighting comes as researchers warn that Great Whites could soon appear off Britain's coast thanks to global warming.
A great white shark has been spotted in the Mediterranean for the first time ever. Divers from Healthy Seas were removing ghost nets on an offshore shipwreck between Sicily and Tunisia when they spotted the predator.
Their footage is believed to be the first ever captured of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea in its natural habitat. Great white sharks are usually found in temperate and subtropical coastal waters, particularly in the northeastern Pacific, southern Africa, and Oceania.
However, the findings suggest the species is now roaming the seas off the coast of Europe. Statistically, it is way more likely to win the lottery jackpot than to meet such an iconic animal underwater, said Derk Remmers, the diver who filmed the encounter. An offshore underwater shark encounter in the Mediterranean is insane, yet we also went on with our diving plan to remove nets from the wreck, as this moment showed the importance of our work very clearly.
Their footage is believed to be the first ever captured of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean Sea in its natural habitat. Divers from Healthy Seas were removing ghost nets on an offshore shipwreck between Sicily and Tunisia when they spotted the predator. Great white sharks have occasionally been spotted at the surface in the Mediterranean.
However, underwater encounters filmed by divers have never been documented before. The latest encounter took place while the team was working to recover abandoned fishing nets from a shipwreck located offshore in the Strait of Sicily. This is a key biodiversity hotspot, but also one of the most heavily exploited fishing areas in the Mediterranean.
What makes this encounter so powerful is not only the shark itself, but the context in which it happened, said Veronika Mikos, Director of Healthy Seas. We were there to remove ghost nets trapping marine life on a shipwreck ecosystem that is a hotspot for biodiversity. Moments like this remind us how much life can still exist in offshore Mediterranean waters and how important it is to protect it from preventable threats like abandoned fishing gear or overfishing.
The researchers hope the sighting will help to shed light on the distribution of Great White Sharks around the world. Diver Derk Remmers was the one to spot the Great White, and said nothing prepares you for a moment like this. The latest encounter took place while the team was working to recover abandoned fishing nets from a shipwreck located offshore in the Strait of Sicily. Join the discussion.
Should we do more to protect sharks in our waters, or are they too dangerous to be allowed near popular beaches? What's your view? Dr Carlo Cattano, researcher at the Sicily Marine Centre of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, said Most of our knowledge on the White Sharks in the Mediterranean Sea comes from records of dead specimens caught by fishing operations.
Observations like this are extremely valuable for improving our understanding of the distribution, habits, and behaviour of this critically endangered species, whose survival is threatened by human activities. Our research on sharks has, over time, allowed us to identify several key hotspots for threatened species, and this sighting is particularly significant in validating the conservation value of this area. The sighting comes shortly after researchers warned that Great Whites could soon appear off Britain's coast thanks to global warming.
Our new study of two whale fossils, with preserved fragments of shark teeth, suggests the modern descendants of these animals could once again roam the southern region of the North Sea, between the UK, Belgium and Denmark, researchers wrote in a blog on The Conversation. Climate change may recreate the conditions that allowed the ancestors of great white sharks to hunt in these waters.
Despite no official record, there have been numerous unconfirmed sightings of great whites around Cornwall and northern Scotland - indicating they may actually already be here
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