Freetobme

Sad truth about the Mediterranean Great white shark

For a long time now I’ve been a shark enthusiast , I saw the film Jaws for the first time at the age of 5 and was hooked on this amazing animal right away .
Over the years since than most of my research has been on the GWS (great white shark ) and especially in the European region, While I was growing up I visited various islands around the Mediterranean Sea and always wondered what secrets lie in the deep blue sea , to my surprise I read that the gws was a permanent resident to the med but only exist in small numbers .
The last fatal shark attack in the med was in 1989 just off the coast of Italy on a scuba diver whose body was never found , the last known gws shark attack in the med was in 2008 of the coast of Croatia (Adriatic sea) .
Millions of holiday makers visit the med every year and there is a confidence that the med is completely safe from any shark attacks which in recent years seems reasonable, but the fact is of the 41 known gws attacks in the med 18 have died and the attack records only started from 1909 .
So if we went back 100 years to when the med was a centre of abundance for gws and people had the same care free confidence they do now then the attack numbers would go through the roof .
Don’t get me wrong I don’t want anybody to get attacked by any sharks but it just shows how the gws in the med has been hunted heavy and near extinction in this region, but the gws is not the only critically endangered species in this sea , the Atlantic blue thin tuna was industrially fished for decades in the med and this is now a near on dead industry.
Some people out there will say good riddance but for me it’s a sad end for a amazing creature that was first documented in the med before anywhere else, once there gone that’s it and it’s all down to humanity and greed .

My point was about a shark in a certain sea but I would like this article to make people think about all animals on this planet (land and sea) and how precious they are and how it’s our responsibility to ensure there future as much as our own .
Peace and love