The Mediterranean's Great White Shark: A Rare Encounter and a Growing Threat
In a remarkable underwater encounter, technical divers Derk Remmers and his team witnessed a large great white shark in the Strait of Sicily, believed to be the first adult great white shark ever filmed in the Mediterranean in its natural habitat. This extraordinary sighting, while scientifically valuable, was overshadowed by the grim reality of the divers' mission: clearing a shipwreck entangled in ghost nets, a silent killer of marine life.
The Strait of Sicily, a heavily exploited fishing area, is plagued by ghost nets, lost or abandoned fishing gear that traps and kills marine life indefinitely. The divers' mission, organized by the Healthy Seas Foundation, Ghost Diving, and the Society for Documentation of Submerged Sites (SDSS), aimed to remove these deadly nets from the shipwreck. The team's efforts have already documented loggerhead sea turtles and large fish species trapped in the abandoned gear, and they continue to recover sections of net, which will be safely discarded or recycled.
The scale of the ghost net problem is staggering. Derk Remmers estimates that between one to ten percent of all fishing gear from fishing vessels worldwide gets lost each year, adding up to more than half a million tonnes annually. This crisis extends beyond individual wrecks, echoing through the entire marine food web.
The shark's presence near the ghost net-entangled shipwreck serves as a stark reminder of the threat posed by these silent killers. As Derk Remmers notes, the predator's hunting presence indicates a thriving ecosystem with abundant prey. However, the ghost nets themselves pose a significant risk to the predators, as they can trap and kill them, further disrupting the delicate balance of the marine environment.
While volunteer clean-up operations like Derk's are crucial, he emphasizes that they cannot solve the ghost net crisis alone. The solution requires confronting illegal and large-scale industrial fishing practices head-on. Family-run fishing businesses have strong incentives to prevent gear loss, but it is the industrial and illegal actors operating at scale who pose the greatest threat to the ecosystem. Derk urges politicians and Europeans to take action against this threat and prioritize the health of the underwater environment.
The mission also included environmental DNA sampling and underwater monitoring to enhance understanding of the species present around the wreck. Further analysis is expected in the coming months, with additional footage and scientific material to be released. This rare encounter and the ongoing efforts to combat ghost nets highlight the importance of protecting marine ecosystems and the need for global action to address this growing environmental crisis.
