Monsters in the Med: Shock for Brit tourists as ‘Great White Sharks off Spanish hotspots’ | Europe | Travel

Scientists are investigating if man-eating Great White Sharks are now prevalent off tourist hotspots on both sides of the Spanish coast on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

The five-metre long killer fish are known to inhabit the Mediterranean Sea, with previous sightings off the Spanish eastern coast.

The last time one was officially recorded was in 2018, when a 5-metre-long Great White was seen off the coast of the Balearic island Cabrera, in the Med, by the scientific expedition Alnitak.

It comes as a team of researchers also set out investigating the potential presece of Great Whites off the UK and Irish coast.

Now Spanish researchers are also investigating the presence of great white sharks in the Atlantic waters off northern Spain on its western side.

US research company Ocearch and Spain’s Fundacion Oceanographic are working together to study the Great White in the Med and Atlantic off Portugal and Spain, in a bid to help protect the species.

They now believe that adult females on the Atlantic side may be coming into the Med to leave young sharks in a “nursery” before leaving via the Strait of Gibraltar.

They also suspect there could be a similar nursery off the coast of Galicia on the western side.

Shark nurseries are where females leave the young to let them learn how to feed and navigate alone and and avoid predators.

The main reason is to choose bays and other protected areas, with fewer predators, for the pups to spend their first months or years of life.

On July 29, a Save the Mediterranean Expedition left the port of Vigo towards the Bay of Biscay and arrived in Bilbao on August 10, with the aim of looking at areas of previous sightings.

Researcher Pablo Garcia-Salinas told El Correo: “The presence of sharks on the Cantabrian coast is normal, but it is not common to see them, since there are very few specimens.”

The team plans to find a Great White and carry out an evaluation, taking body fluid and muscle tissue samples, while measuring the aquatic beast.

Mr Garcia-Salinas added: “The females in the Atlantic could be using the Mediterranean as a kind of nursery: they would go there to give birth and, when the pups grew, they would leave through the Strait of Gibraltar.”