Rare great white shark filmed in Strait of Sicily in first-ever Mediterranean underwater footage

Conservation divers have captured what is believed to be the first ever underwater footage of an adult great white shark in its natural Mediterranean habitat — in the Strait of Sicily, between Tunisia and Sicily.

The footage was released yesterday on the 8th of June, to mark World Oceans Day. The encounter itself took place in late May, during a mission by the Healthy Seas Foundation, Ghost Diving, and the Society for the Documentation of Submerged Sites (SDSS) to remove abandoned fishing nets — ghost nets — from a shipwreck approximately 40 metres down.

Derk Remmers, a volunteer technical diver with Ghost Diving, described how his fingers trembled as he struggled to get his camera running — his fear not of the shark, but that he would miss the shot.

Dr. Carlo Cattano, a researcher at the Sicily Marine Centre of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, said most knowledge of great white sharks in the Mediterranean comes from dead specimens caught by fishing boats. A live underwater observation of an adult in its natural habitat is therefore scientifically valuable.

The great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List globally and critically endangered in the Mediterranean, where its population has collapsed over the long term due to overfishing, bycatch, and habitat degradation.

The setting adds a layer of significance. The central Mediterranean is one of the world’s most heavily fished basins. The divers were in the water clearing the very kind of fishing gear that continues to kill marine life indiscriminately — ghost nets — when an apex predator appeared. Scientists and conservation groups have pointed to the encounter as further evidence for the need for marine protected areas in the region.

Reporting contributed by BBC News.