Researchers have found the
Mediterranean's last white sharks in the Sicilian Channel.
The traces of the endangers great predators were found in the
area during a number of expeditions led by Francesco Ferretti,
an Italian scientist with Virginia Tech University.
Though they were historically abundant and widely distributed in
the region, Mediterranean white sharks have declined to
dangerously low abundance levels, impacted by centuries of
coastal and, more recently, industrial fishing.
"We decided to accept the challenge of finding the last white
sharks in the Mediterranean," Ferretti said.
"It wasn't easy".
The study seeks to be the first step of a conservation program
in the Mediterranean to track the last white sharks in the
region, estimate their abundance and extinction risk,
characterize the species' ecology and inform management and
conservation.
A paper on the study, which also featured contributions from the
Università Politecnica delle Marche and Naples' Anton Dohrn
Zoological Station, has been published in Frontiers in Marine
Science.
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