Overview
- Volunteer diver Derk Remmers recorded the footage while a Healthy Seas expedition with Ghost Diving and SDSS worked to remove abandoned fishing nets from a wreck between Sicily and Tunisia.
- Expedition organizers and reporters describe the clip as the first underwater video of an adult great white freely swimming in the area rather than a surface sighting or stranded specimen.
- The team noted the shark was accompanied by about a dozen pilot fish and said the animal may have been drawn to dead marine life found trapped in the ghost nets.
- Researchers collected environmental DNA and biodiversity samples at the site and say those analyses, due in the coming months, are needed before drawing wider conclusions about local great white numbers or behavior.
- Conservationists emphasized that abandoned fishing gear poses a direct threat to turtles and large fish and that confirmed, repeat observations plus scientific study are required to inform protection of a population regarded as critically endangered in the region.