Many people have the image in mind of these apex predators swimming and catching seals around the wonderful False Bay, South Africa, where people can cage dive with these animals and see majestic jumps out of the water when sharks are hunting. Less common is to visualise these large predators in the Mediterranean sea.
Well, it might be hard to believe, but Great White sharks are present in the med area and one important nursery was found in the Sicilian channel, Italy, where juveniles can take advantage of good conditions such as warm waters and rich primary production which attracts a great variety of fishes and marine mammals.
Despite these animals have been living in the area for over 3 million years, the number of individuals is dramatically decreasing. It is estimated that form the beginning of the 20th-century shark population has decreased by 90% because of overfishing, by-catch, pollution, degradation of the habitat and climate change.
During the last century, in fact there have been several captures by fishermen in the Mediterranean such as the specimen caught In Malta the 17th April 1987, one of the biggest great whites recorded, which length was estimated over 65o cm.
Several reports of great white shark individual caught in the Med can be found on the internet with pictures attached, even though it is strictly forbidden fish, carry on board, sell or unload specimens of Carcharodon carcharias, in European Union waters and for European vessels.
The good news is that, during the lockdown, maybe because of weak vessel traffic, a great white shark has been filmed by some fishermen around the little island of Lampedusa, Italy.
So if you are lucky enough you might have the chance to see a Great White swimming around the French, Italian or Spanish coast, so keep the eyes open to spot the most famous dorsal fin :)
To know more about great white sharks caught in the Mediterranean seas, I highly recommend this scientific article:
De Maddalena, Alessandro, et al. "An analysis of the photographic evidences of the largest great white sharks, Carcharodon carcharias (Linnaeus, 1758), captured in the Mediterranean Sea with considerations about the maximum size of the species." Annales, Series historia naturalis. Vol. 25. 2001.