Divers consider they’ve recorded the primary ever footage of an grownup nice white shark in Mediterranean waters. They noticed the apex predator throughout a mission to take away ghost nets from a shipwreck off the coast of the Strait of Sicily.
“We, as a staff of three, noticed this large shark,” Derk Remmers, a volunteer with Ghost Diving instructed BBC Information.
The large animal was near the wreck they had been diving on. “Fairly near us, the truth is,” he remembers. And it seemed just like the world’s most iconic shark: an awesome white.
Remmers scrambled to catch this unimaginable second on movie. “My fingers had been trembling whereas I used to be attempting to get the digicam working,” he says. “However, then again, I feel my greatest concern was that I couldn’t get the digicam operating so I couldn’t file this uncommon occasion.”
White sharks are identified to inhabit Mediterranean waters however seeing one is extremely uncommon.
That makes it very exhausting for researchers to study their lives. This second – and different findings from the mission – may present key data for shark researchers.
“Most of our information on the white sharks within the Mediterranean Sea comes from data of useless specimens caught by fishing operations,” says Dr. Carlo Cattano, researcher on the Sicily Marine Centre of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, in an announcement.
In addition to attempting to take away discarded fishing gear from the shipwreck, the staff labored with the Society for Documentation of Submerged Websites (SDSS) and shark scientists to doc what they discovered on the positioning.
They even took environmental DNA (eDNA) samples which permit them to even file animals they by no means see by detecting tiny elements of genetic materials they’ve left behind within the water.
“Our analysis on sharks has, over time, allowed us to establish a number of key hotspots for threatened species, and this sighting is especially vital in validating the conservation worth of this space,” provides Cattano.
So, ought to folks be nervous about Jaws swimming by the Med? Remmers says no: “It was offshore, it was within the central Mediterranean. It was not near a seashore the place folks may really feel at risk,” he instructed BBC Information.
Though folks would possibly really feel nervous, shark bites are extremely uncommon. In 2025, there have been simply 65 unprovoked bites globally.
After the once-in-a-lifetime encounter, Remmers and the staff continued with their work to take away the ghost gear from the shipwreck.
Wrecks are biodiversity hotspots as a result of their buildings flip into a synthetic reef and supply properties for a lot of completely different ocean animals.
“What makes this encounter so highly effective isn’t solely the shark itself, however the context wherein it occurred,” says Veronika Mikos, Director of Wholesome Seas, which organised the cleanup mission. “We had been there to take away ghost nets trapping marine life on a shipwreck ecosystem that may be a hotspot for biodiversity.”
When discarded fishing nets get caught up on shipwrecks, they develop into “underwater traps”, in keeping with Wholesome Seas. The very marine life that’s interested in the habitat turns into vulnerable to getting entangled within the gear and dying.
“Moments like this remind us how a lot life can nonetheless exist in offshore Mediterranean waters,” provides Mikos, “and the way necessary it’s to guard it from preventable threats like deserted fishing gear or overfishing.”
The venture was organised by Wholesome Seas and supported by Wholesome Seas’ companion DWS
This article by Melissa Hobson was first revealed by Uncover Wildlife on 12 June 2026. Lead Picture: Getty.
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