Great White Shark Filmed In Mediterranean Sea For The First Time Ever: "My Fingers Were Trembling"

Divers working to remove abandoned fishing nets from the central Mediterranean have captured what is believed to be the first-ever underwater footage of an adult great white shark in the region. The incredible sighting took place in the Strait of Sicily, between Italy and Tunisia, as a team led by the Healthy Seas Foundation recovered "ghost nets" from a shipwreck. The area is considered a biodiversity hotspot but has been heavily affected by industrial fishing and discarded fishing gear.

The remarkable encounter occurred when a large great white shark emerged from the depths and approached the divers, coming within about nine feet of the team. The shark circled them briefly before disappearing back into the open sea.

"Nothing prepares you for a moment like this," said technical diver Derk Remmers, who photographed and filmed the animal. Speaking to Euronews Earth, Remmers said the "big animal" circled the team, leaving him "shocked" and "amazed."

"My fingers were trembling, that's for sure – it was a big animal and we didn't expect this at all. He swam by and then he turned around and faced us and came back. It seemed clear that he was curious and not aggressive – he was really laid back, like he had the attitude of being the boss down there. And when we started releasing a few bubbles from our mouth, he started speeding up a little bit and vanished into the blue," he added. 

In a separate statement he called spotting the shark offshore in the Mediterranean "insane."

The dive was part of a conservation mission organized by Healthy Seas, which has previously documented marine animals, including sea turtles, trapped in abandoned fishing equipment at the site. According to fellow diver Pascal van Erp, the shark may have been attracted by dead marine life caught in the discarded nets.

Video released on Monday shows the shark, believed to be an adult male, swimming calmly alongside a dozen striped pilot fish, which often accompany large marine predators in search of scraps of food.

Watch the rare footage here:

Although great white sharks have occasionally been spotted at the surface in the Mediterranean, conservationists say this is believed to be the first time an underwater encounter with an adult specimen in the region has been captured on camera by divers. 

Notably, the species has been classified as critically endangered in the Mediterranean by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) since 2016, and scientists still know little about the size of the remaining population.

Members of the diving team, which included representatives from Healthy Seas Foundation, Ghost Diving, and SDSS, described the shark as curious but non-aggressive. Experts stressed that the sighting occurred far offshore between Sicily and Tunisia and poses no concern to the public.

"Moments like this remind us how much life can ​still exist in offshore Mediterranean waters and how ​important it ⁠is to protect it from preventable threats like abandoned fishing gear or overfishing," said Healthy Seas director Veronika Mikos.