A great white shark in the Mediterranean - what recently swam unexpectedly in front of the camera of a member of a diving team is a minor sensation. It is well known that such animals exist in the Mediterranean. However, film footage of them is extremely rare. However, water sports enthusiasts need not panic because of the encounter.
These are images that are more familiar from South Africa or Australia: a great white shark gliding calmly through the blue - filmed by divers. This time, however, the image comes from the Mediterranean, more precisely from the Strait of Sicily between Tunisia and Sicily.
Volunteer divers from the Healthy Seas organisation and the Ghost Diving project had freed a wreck there from so-called ghost nets when the predatory fish appeared. During the operation to retrieve old fishing nets, the team came across the shark several miles from the coast, which passed them in the company of pilot fish.
Filming the shark "with trembling hands"
The shark was filmed by volunteer diver Derk Remmers, who later reported that his hands were trembling while filming. He described the encounter to the BBC as "pretty special" and described how close the animal came to the group: "And in fact my fingers were trembling when I was trying to get the camera operating."
In a statement, he called such an offshore underwater shark encounter in the Mediterranean "insane". The footage shows an adult great white shark, accompanied by several pilot fish, calmly passing by the divers.
Divers actually wanted to recover ghost nets
The mission itself originally had nothing to do with sharks: The aim was to free a wreck in the Strait of Sicily from old gillnets and trawls - so-called ghost nets that continue to kill fish, sea turtles and other marine life. One member of the team suspects that the shark was attracted by the dead marine fauna - including many turtles - caught in the net.
According to the organisations involved, the footage is the first known underwater video footage of an adult great white shark in the Mediterranean taken by divers. Other famous footage dates back to 1998, when sport fishermen off Rimini on the Italian Adriatic coast filmed how they had caught a thresher shark, which a much larger shark then tore off the hook before the fishermen could pull it on board. The film footage from that time shows a large, massive shark with the typical physique of a great white shark.
First great white shark sighting in the Mediterranean on video from 1998
The Rimini video was previously regarded as the first recent film documentation of a live great white shark in the Mediterranean. It was recognised in specialist literature and by National Geographic as clear evidence of a great white shark in the area. Other photos and recordings from earlier years only show dead animals that had been caught by fishermen as by-catch.
Great white sharks are generally rare in the Mediterranean, but they do occur - especially in the central and eastern Mediterranean. For decades, reports have come from the Adriatic Sea, from waters south of Italy and from the area between North Africa and Sicily.
The population is considered to be severely depleted; overfishing and bycatch have presumably significantly reduced the population. A BBC report even suggests that overfishing may have brought the species to the brink of extinction in the Mediterranean.
Numerous other shark species also live in the Mediterranean, including blue sharks, thresher sharks, various hammerheads and smaller basking sharks. Most of these are largely harmless to humans and avoid coastal areas with high levels of bathing and boat traffic. Many of these species - like the great white shark - are on red lists of endangered species, not because of attacks on humans, but as a result of fishing and their loss of habitat.
How dangerous is a great white shark for water sports enthusiasts?
For pleasure boaters, sailors and motorboat crews, the new recording is spectacular, but it is no cause for panic. For several reasons: The great white shark filmed was spotted far from the coast. In addition, great white sharks are apex predators, but not "manhunters". Encounters in the Mediterranean are extremely rare; the shark often goes unnoticed or keeps its distance. And compared to other risks such as storms, accidents and capsizing or overboard traps, the danger posed by sharks to water sports enthusiasts in the Mediterranean is almost negligible.
For divers and swimmers in the open sea, the same applies: stay sensible. Do not set any stimuli that trigger feeding behaviour (e.g. fishing with bloody bait in the immediate vicinity, handling spearfish at depths where large sharks occur), stay in the group and, if a large shark is sighted, calmly ascend or retreat to the boat.
What the sighting means for the Mediterranean
Marine conservationists see the video as a positive signal: it shows that large predators can still be found even in heavily fished regions such as the Strait of Sicily. The organisation Healthy Seas emphasises that moments like these remind us "how much life can still exist in offshore Mediterranean waters" - and how important it is to protect these areas from avoidable dangers such as ghost nets and overfishing.
Pascal Schürmann
Editor YACHT
