Gigantic Great White Shark in Mallorca

At Biel's house with a jaw taken from a Mallorquin Great White

Any reader of this blog should know by now I have a special passion for sharks in the Mediterranean, especially around the Balearic Islands and in particular Mallorca. For those that don't know, Mallorca actually has a fascinating history with the Great White Shark with twenty seven confirmed captures between the 1920's and 1976.

My good friend and Mallorquin Biologist, Gabriel Morey and I, will often talk about Great Whites around the island, not only does he share my passion for the stories but he also happens to be one of Europe's leading authorities on Great White Sharks in the Med and is the go to guy for everything related to sharks around the Balearics.

One of the main topics which always arises is that of the gigantic Great White captured in El Delta in 1969, a 6.2m specimen captured close to shore, the primary reason being that El Delta is where we handle our work with the Stingrays featured in both A Ray of Light and A Ray of Light II. It's amazing when I dive that area to think that such a huge White Shark was once swimming around there and to be honest, I get a kick out of it.

Today, Anton at Shark Alley (Anton's a cool guy, go like them on Facebook) posted this video:



I have already seen this footage a few years ago but it has now found it's way online and I originally thought this was one of two sharks given the date, a 5.5m specimen taken from Alcudia by Oscar Pinet or the first shark (5.35m) caught by Xisco Perez, who would later catch the second biggest Great White captured anywhere on the planet (1976) and the final confirmed Great White caught around the island.

However, after checking with Biel it turns out the date on the footage is wrong and that this is actually the specimen caught by Guillem Farragut in El Delta in 1969, coming in at a whopping 6.2m! I never knew this was in fact the shark we have talked so much about. There is video footage of a few of the White Sharks taken around Mallorca but much of it is unavailable online but I have been fortunate enough to see it all and one thing which stands out about these sharks is that they are huge!

Not only that, but they are very much still there, only recently there was proof of this but I'm afraid I'm sworn to secrecy on that...

Anyway, if you want to see the area where this shark was caught, check out A Ray of Light II!


A Ray of Light II from Scarlet View Media on Vimeo.